


Beware the High Tide

by NameLess_FaceLess_FormLess



Category: The Hobbit (Jackson Movies), The Hobbit - All Media Types, The Hobbit - J. R. R. Tolkien, The Little Mermaid - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Dark, Alternate Universe - Merpeople, Alternate Universe - The Little Mermaid Fusion, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, F/M, Is that a thing, M/M, Medium violence, Mild Gore, Multi, dark creepy merfolk, i´m making it a thing, merman bard, merman thranduil
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-02-09
Updated: 2019-03-05
Packaged: 2019-03-15 15:53:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 17
Words: 34,789
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13616673
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NameLess_FaceLess_FormLess/pseuds/NameLess_FaceLess_FormLess
Summary: After their teenage children ditch their fishtails and disappear on the shore, the fathers have to cooperate in order to get them back.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Hello, peoples!  
> It´s not that long since I´ve finished my Tangled AU fic and I did want to take a longer break, but then the beginning of my semester got pushed back a week, so... you know...  
> So I decided to attempt a dark-ish merfolk au. I really wanted to write something kinda...bitey, toothy, gory. I´m not getting my hopes up because I always end up being sacrastic or something, but we´ll see how this turns out.  
> I hope you´ll enjoy it! :3

The people of the coast had never attempted to negotiate any kind of truce with the merfolk. The ocean was theirs, same as the shore belonged to the man. There was no grey zone. The shark people wouldn´t recognize a grey zone even if there was any. Ships were sunk, children disappeared in the shallows. Sometimes the water by the very edge of the beach was red.

The coast had tried to fight for a territory on the sea. They had killed a female once. Two days later a three-masted merchant ship had been sunk, torn to pieces by jaws of a whole tribe. The crew had been reduced to a single forearm that had been tossed onto the beach to be found by random passers-by. It had been a very clear and very quicly received message.

The coastal community had dedicated years to mapping the shark folk´s territory and creating routes to avoid them after that. They had to relocate the entire port. It didn´t help as much as they had expected it too. Most of the seaside community agreed it was better not to provoke the shark tribes, but ´most´didn´t equal ´all´. A few remained, who kept the pouring oil into the fire despite being threatened with banishment or jail.

But there were worse things in the ocean than shark people.

 _Allegedly_.

Stories about the merfolk of the deep were immensely popular about the children and teenagers. Dark mermaids and mermen, discolored by the lack of sunlight, with glowing eyes and long teeth, creatures who voluntarily lived from plankton for entire centuries but still managed to haunt the dreams of everyone who had ever seen them and when presented with opportunity, their bloodlust was hard to sooth. There was talk of a king, whose face was horribly mangled in a clash with whale hunters who murdered his wife when lured to her by her singing, of a hauntingly beautiful shadows gliding under ships that were to disappear forever after seeing them, of sound coming from the depths during nights of calm...

They were used as a story to spook naughty children, but the elderly always felt silent at the mention of them. Because some of them had actually _seen_ the deep sea merfolk. And it was anything _but_ hauntingly beautiful.

* * *

The boat was like a cradle, gently bobbing on the waves, rocking the loner fisherman like a baby. He was half asleep, thinking what a brilliant idea it had been to move to the coast. Away from everything, good _and_ bad, just everything. Especially the bad. Here it was peaceful, empty fo people most of the time and at night he had the entire ocean to himself. Nobody asked question, nobody pried into his private existence, it was paradise.

He yawned, squinted at the unmoving strike indicator and yawned again.

The girl in the water smiled at him.

It took him a second to catch up on what his eyes were seeing. He rubbed them properly before he looked again. Maybe a trick of light. Probably. He had been out here for a while now and the moonlight glittering on the undulated water surface wasn´t doing his eyes any favors.

But there she was.

A girl in the water. Wet hair was sticking to her face, partly covering the biggest eyes he had ever seen on a child. They were like two dark pearls. Very unsettling. She was eight, maybe nine years old, wearing a stained and shredded undershirt and she was completely still, even though they were way too far from the shore for her to be able to stand.

He was confused. It appeared that addressing her as a ´little girl´ was out of the question, sure, she _did_ look like a little girl but the man had very serious doubts about her actually being one. Even more precisely, he felt like he shouldn´t be looking at her at all, like making an eye contact with her was the biggest mistake. Possibly of his entire life.

She didn´t make a sound, didn´t wink, didn´t move a muscle, didn´t do anything. Just weirdly floated there for a disgustingly long amount of time while he lost feeling in various parts of his body, afraid to do anything at all.

Entire minutes later she suddenly disappeared. He barely noticed it, the water splashed gently and she was gone, immediately prompting doubts whether she had even been there in the first place.

The fisherman jerked awake, heart beating way beyond its usual pace. His fishing rod was gone.

_Probably knocked it into the water when I fell asleep._

He started to row back to the shore. Maybe the tavern would still pour him something fiery to wash that _face_ off his mind.

Something hit his boat from underneath. The wood made a disturbing cracking sound. The man stopped rowing. There shouldn´t be any rocks in the area, he knew the sea pretty well by now, he had been going out on it for weeks.

Another hit, stronger. Another cracking sound, louder. Water was leaking through.

He barely had time to notice that, because the hits now begun coming one after another, each harder than the last one. Water was pouring inside the boat in buckets all of a sudden.

He saw teeth and tiny hands with interdigital webbing. It was the teeth that worried him.

Something was eating his boat.

* * * 

 

“They saw her again, didn´t they.“

“They did. At the rocks by the pier. I thought they didn´t go there anymore.“

“Well this one clearly does. What do we do about it?“

“She appears to be a child. I´m not touching this.“

“Still a man-eating monster, Sam. We have to deal with her.“

The other men hummed in consensus, a few of them banged fists on the table. Sam Redgrave wasn´t about to. Everyone had very quickly forgotten what had happened the last time a mermaid had been killed.

“I´m not harpooning a little girl, guys,“ he said and got up, “if you do, don´t tell me.“

He walked past the hospital on his way home. The bed under the window had a new resident. Sam peeked through the shutters. The man was drenched in sweat, muttering in his sleep, muscles in his face twitching. He was missing a leg.

Sam looked away when a nurse walked in.

News about the little mermaid had been coming for some time now. Sometimes she just observed and those who saw her came home terrified but whole. Sometimes she attacked. Sam doubted there was malice behind it. She was exploring, testing herself, going on a whim, a curiosity. Human children ate sand and jumped into unknown waters, breaking their limbs and bruising their skulls. Children of the merfolk wanted to know whether they could tear a boat apart with their bare dainty hands.

It wasn´t more than a play.

_She still bit off a man´s leg. She could´ve killed him. A little girl with a fishtail._

Sam glanced towards the sea. It was still deep purple on the horizon, the sun hadn´t reached that far yet. He had been trying to make up his mind about the merfolk since he had known what making up his mind meant.

Incidents like these were making it so much harder.

 


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here comes another chapter! It´s so nice to see you guys coming back :3 Don´t hesiate to tell me anything that comes to mind!   
> I hope you´ll enjoy this as you have enjoyed my other fics. <3

“Da, Tilda ate a man again!“

“I did not! Just bit him. A lil´ bit.“

The children´s voices echoed through the cave as they raced towards their father.

Bain was generally bigger and faster, pushing his fifteenth year. He had already gone through what was among merfolk known as transition. His tail was fully grown, hinting that he had inherited more from his mother than father. While Bard shared the genetic code with the great whites, which gave him roughly four metres in length, his wife had been one of the last surviving descendants of the megalodon merfolk. They had shrunken a bit since the time of their prime but she had still been almost ten meters long when fuly grown. Bain was already as big as his father and bound to grow more.

Tilda, on the other hand, maintained an appearance of a pet fish so far. She was approaching her transition and really wanted to bite things, especially living, squirming things that bled. Her small upper body looked mildly disproportionate next to her tail. She had inherited a beautiful anchor grey colour from Bard which continued up her back in streaks. She was very proud of her streaks, especially because Bain didn´t have any.

Now she used her size to slide unde her brother and get in front of him, so she could be the first to literally deck their father when trying to go for a hug at full speed.

Slow clouds of sand rose from the ocean floor when their bodies hit it. Bard did hug back, but since echo had already carried Bain´s words to him, he had a bone to pick with his youngest.

“What have I told you about going up, Tilda?“

She rolled over and flipped her fin, making more sand go up. “Not to?“

“And what did you do?“

“Went up?“

“And ate a man,“ Bain added, sprawled on a rock.

“I don´t _eat_ the people, Bain!“ Tilda protested and it sounded a little teary. “I don´t, da, I promise!“

“Baby, I believe you, but I also don´t much care about that,“ Bard said gently, “I don´t want _you_ to get hurt.“

_Don´t you remember what they did to your mother._

“But there´s nothing to do here, da“ Tilda whined, “we can´t go up, we can´t go down, we can´t go anywhere! How come Sigrid is the only one allowed to have any fun around here?“

“Because she´s seventeen,“ Bard replied, “you know the rules.“

“Up is off limits til fifteen, down is off limits til forever,“ Bain recited.

“Don´t get sassy,“ Bard raised an eyebrow at him.

He lifted Tilda, who was currently pretending to be a bag full of sand, up into his arms and headed deeper into the caves. Bain followed. It was almost time for dinner.

* * *

Sigrid was floating just a few metres under the surface in a cloud of red. Fish were great. It was a cannibalism of sorts but she didn´t mind. That´s how it went in the ocean. If something bigger than you wanted to eat you, it ate you. Sigrid counted on the possibility that one day something bigger than her would be maybe on the very same spot spitting out her bones.

She wiped her mouth and flipped her tail, diving deeper. Legolas was somewhere under her, way under her probably, since she couldn´t make out his fluorescent markings. 

He was very slender in comparison to her, almost like an eel. Sigrid had thought he´d been an eel when she had seen him for the first time but he did have a regular caudal fin, so not an eel probably.

Sigrid wasn´t sure what kind of fish Legolas had been. There were all sorts of weird creatures down there. She saw his father a few times and never could really make out where he began and where he ended, safe for an actual species. A huge amalgam of fins coiling in the water like some otherworldly monstrosity.

Legolas wasn´t like that. There was more of his mother in him, Sigrid assumed. She herself would give anything to be like her mother, a huge powerful creature twice the size of her partner, but despite Bard´s constant reassurance that she would grow more, she suspected her growth was hopelessly stunted. The only thing that seemed to grow some more was her hair. She rarely cut it, she liked how it floated around her head.

Legolas liked it too. He liked lots of things about Sigrid. He liked Sigrid. Recently he had started to reevaluate how much he liked her. They had known each other since childhood and since childhood his father had been unhappy about him hanging out with a sharkmaid, but since the only way to prevent Legolas from doing so seemed to be locking him up, he didn´t do much about it. Legolas heard daily that he was not to see Sigrid again. He felt a bit bad about disobeying so blatantly.

“Gotcha!“ Sigrid yelled and grabbed him by the shoulders.

Legolas yelped and started laughing. She always got him.

“I think I should get going,“ she said when they calmed down, “sunlight´s almost gone. Da will be mad.“

“Please, do tell me more about your angry father,“ Legolas grinned, “I have no idea what those are like.“

Sigrid wrapped her arms around his shoulders and let him carry her for a while.

“I still don´t understand what your father´s problem is. He doesn´t even know me, I should just swim into his living room and talk to him about this nonsense. We´re not doing anything bad.“

“Why don´t you, then? He clearly doesn´t listen to me when I tell him this exact thing,“ Legolas replied a bit bitterly.

Sigrid was quiet for a moment. “Because he´s really, really, really scary, man,“ she said eventually, “and I´d totally be staring at his scar the entire time and it would be just a huuuge embarassment and he´d hate me even more.“

“He doesn´t hate _you_ ,“ Legolas said quickly, “he kinda hates the sharkfolk in general but I think it´s more out of obligation than anything else. That beef we allegedly have with your kind is old as... well, old. I don´t really see the point of nursing a grudge. I bet if I asked him, he wouldn´t even know what´s the grudge about.“

“I don´t know myself,“ Sigrid mumbled into his neck.

“Also, speaking of scary dads,“ Legolas continued, “I saw your ada chase dinner a week ago. I don´t _ever_ want to make that man angry.“

Sigrid laughed. “Oh please. So he´s fast.“

“ _And_ big!“

“Mom was bigger. Way, waaay bigger.“

They arrived at the borders of the shark territory. Sigrid sighed and let go of Legolas, absentmindedly smoothing out her ragged undershirt.

“See you tomorrow?" Legolas asked with a lot of hope in his voice.

“Sure,“ she smiled, “we could finally go up, how about that? We´ve been talking about it since my sixteenth birthday.“

“We could,“ he nodded, “or we could do other stuff, you know... non-lethal stuff.“

Sigrid nudged him with her elbow. “Oh come on. Don´t you wanna be the first deep sea merman to actually go up?“

“Don´t you wanna be the first sharkmaid to actually go _down_?“ Legolas nudged her back.

“Let´s just go everywhere we´re not supposed to go tomorrow,“ Sigrid concluded.

“Deal.“

* * *

Transition was sort of like puberty for human children but not quite. Most of the merfolk offspring found it to be quite fun while human children would rarely use that word when talking about the hormonal madhouse that was happening to them. In case of merfolk, they peacefully matured, developing their final colours, growing a fin or two, beginning to glow or sting. Deep sea sirens developed their voices. In case of sharks and especially the great whites thing could and did get bloody.

Children of sharks became for a brief time the deadliest creatures in the ocean. They didn´t hunt for food, they hunted for fun. Anything that moved was a good enough prey. There were rare cases of them attacking even their own parents but that happened only if the parents wouldn´t let them vent. The children in transition needed to vent. To let it out. Very often to kill. Otherwise they would loose control.

Bard´s lack of interest in his baby girl biting off someone´s leg stemmed from this very fact. She was the daughter of two most dangerous sharks to probably ever exist, to expect that she would not attack any humans was silly. The problem was the humans usually fought back and that was what worried him. She was swimming too close to the shore. She couldn´t possibly fight them all at once if they decided to come for her.

Sigrid swam in and tore him out of his thoughts. She kissed him on the cheek and nested herself between her siblings. Bain was quickly devouring his portion of fish while Tilda looked like she wished her food was still alive.

“You´ve got blood on your top,“ Bard noted, “you´ve already eaten?“

“Yop. Quite a lot. Tilda can have my fish if she wants to.“

“How about me?“ Bain protested with his mouth full.

Sigrid gave him a look. “Seriously?“

He swallowed and grinned. “Nah, just playin´.“

“You were with Legolas today, weren´t you,“ Bard said and it wasn´t even a question.

“Da...“

He raised his hands in defense. “You know that what annoys me the most about your relationship with that boy is Thranduil.“

“Legolas is my friend, da. We don´t do anything bad,“ Sigrid said mechanically, as if repeating a mantra.

She was tired of having to repeat that constantly.

“Tell that to that _thing_ when he shows up at my door,“ Bard scoffed.

“Don´t call Thranduil a thing,“ Sigrid said sharply, “don´t stoop to his level.“

“Is Thranduil why we can´t go down?“ Tilda asked between bites.

“He is,“ Bain replied instead of Bard, “because if you look at him, you´ll never sleep again, that´s how horrible his face is!“

“Oh do _shut up_ ,“ Sigrid turned to him, “why do you tell her this nonsense? This is exactly why me and Legolas can´t spend time together peacefully, because our families won´t stop spouting shit about each other!“

She angrily pushed herself away and disappeared into the corridors. Bard felt a pinch of shame.

“Look, guys,“ he turned to his younger children, “we don´t like the deep sea merfolk and the deep sea merfolk doesn´t like us, but from now on let´s refrain from talking bad about them at least at this table, alright? For Sigrid´s sake. Legolas is her friend, I shouldn´t have called his father a thing and Bain, you stop feeding Tilda this nonsense.“

“Is it true, though?“ Tilda looked up from her fifth fish. “About his face? Is is really so horrible?“

Bard sighed.

“Thranduil is badly scarred, yes,“ he said, “but that´s what binds him to us, to every single other merman and mermaid in this or other ocean, Tilda.“

“How come?“

“People of the shore did that to him.“


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello, peoples! Here comes another chapter. I´m still figuring a lot of stuff out, I fear it shows heh XD Feel free to tell me stuff! Love y´all :3 Happy Valentine´s Day (I´m late).

The storm was in its full force, tossing the ship around like a paper boat. Sam barely let the spy glass out of his hand. The prince couldn´t pick a worse day to arrive. They couldn´t do anything to help the ship, only watch and hope and pray. Despite being drenched from head to toe, everybody was standing outside, on the ramparts, on the cliff, women mumbling prayers, children torn between excitement and fear. Every single eye in town was fixed on the ship. Everyone ignored the mermaid that emerged from the water right under their noses.

Sigrid had suspected the storm already as she had approached the surface with Legolas. The sea was black, not a single speck of sunlight. That was good. If Sigrid wanted Legolas to go up with her, sunny weather wasn´t the best option. As a deep sea merman, Legolas was very sensitive to bright lights. Maybe any lights, in fact, they hadn´t had the opportunity to explore this particular flaw any further. Still, overcast was the best weather to show him the shore.

Storm, on the other hand, posed a slight problem. Sigrid personally enjoyed storms, she loved how the sky looked when it got angry, but she didn´t want to present the world above like a malevolent whirlpool of swirling clouds and aggressive sky water.

She stuck her head out. They were pretty close to the cliff now. The rocks further into the ocean were practically invisible with water constantly breaking on them. Sigrid shielded her eyes against the rain and squinted at the horizon. There was a ship coming and whoever was guiding it had clearly lost all control over it.

Sigrid dove back in. Legolas was waiting for her a few meters deeper, nervously swinging his tail around.

“It´s pretty bad,“ Sigrid admitted when she dropped to his level, “the storm. But that´s not important right now. There´s a ship. I´m almost sure it´s going to crash, it´s heading straight for the rocks. We should do something.“

“Should we though?“ Legolas tilted his head. “I don´t think we should, no, probably not, Sigrid, I don´t think we should. I´m not being a wuss, I just don´t understand why we should... you know, bother.“

“It seems like a decent thing to do?“ Sigrid attempted an answer but didn´t exactly succeed.

“You know what also seems like a decent thing to do? Not mutilating or murdering our parents,“ Legolas said with a dangerous expression.

Sigrid sighed. “Alright, we should do something because when bodies float around for too long, the water gets gross and spoiled and we get sick.“

“I knew you didn´t turn into a walker-loving aquarium fish while I wasn´t looking,“ he grinned at her, “so, any ideas how we will prevent them from dying in the water?“

“I´ll think on the go, we don´t have much time.“

The second Sigrid finished the sentence the loudest sound pulsed through the water.

“Scratch that,“ she corrected herself, face turned up, “we don´t have any.“

* * *

Bard couldn´t tell what was the _worse_ idea – leaving Bain in charge of Tilda, who was practically feral during stormy days, or going into the deep to talk to Thranduil.

They hadn´t talked since Myra´s death. Thranduil had had nothing to with it, they only hadn´t seen each other after that. It had been years.

Bard wouldn´t describe himself as nervous, only uneasy. Also tired, because upsetting Sigrid had robbed him of his sleep for good. As he swam deeper and deeper and recognized less and less things around him, he started to realize there was no coherent version of what he wanted to say in his mind. The topic was clear – their children. And how petty tribal feuds affected them.

But this was what walkers would call a thin ice. One wrong word and the so-called deep sea king starts to think Bard is blaming him.

_Just talk to him. Father to father. Territorial disputes should not be an issue when it comes to your kids. Sure, it wasn´t just purely territorial. They were probably pretty mad about all those my people slaugheter too, I guess. And vice versa. But that was ages ago._

Still, Bard tried his best to keep the shadows and convenient dark crevices as close as possible once he entered Thranduil´s territory. It wasn´t difficult, the territory pretty much was one big convenient dark crevice. Occasionaly a glowing resident with strange bodily appendices appeared but always floated past Bard without even acknowledging him.

_This place is so dark that ´dark´doesn´t even describe it anymore._

If it weren´t for the fluorescent flora, Bard would be going by touch now. Instead he followed the randomly placed handfuls of light and their concentration grew as he neared Thranduil´s place. He was surprised to hear his heart beat so quickly. Whatever he felt, partially it was certainly excitement.

Several of the deep sea folk lingered around the cavity in the side of a very deep and very dark crack in the ocean floor, probably serving as a guard. They spoke in whispers. Most of the deep sea merpeople did, some were silent completely because their voices were their greatest possesions and greatest weapons. A song of a deep sea siren could do unimaginable things. Bard never heard it because these days the sirens rarely sang.

A translucent, purple-glowing jellyfish man looked at him when he was entering the cave but didn´t do or say anything. Bard´s skin crawled a little at the sight of him. Jellyfish were unsettling.

The inside of Thranduil´s cave had a numbing bluish glow. It was probably soothing to the sensitive eyes of the sirens but it was hell for anyone whose sight was used to occasional daylight. Bard´s head started to hurt after a while.

He found Thranduil in his garden, for the lack of a better word. Hundreds of tiny glowing creatures of various shapes were buzzing over quite a few square meters of lophelia, a few of them falling victim to tunicate that nested itself all over the walls and spare spots on the floor.

Thranduil´s own form was taking up most of the space above. Bard remembered him bigger but that was probably because the last time he had seen him, Thranduil´s tale was unravelled in its full length and his entire posture had expressed his feelings.

_Which were angry. All of them, all of those feelings were angry._

Thranduil was purple and blue and when curled up, he resembled a flower, with fins like veils, fluorescence and long silvery hair floating around him, but Bard new what was hidden behind that. He had seen Thranduil the night they had found him half dead clinging to a rock, and he was fairly sure everyone had a pretty vivid memory of that. There was a lot of agression among the separate tribes of merfolk but the hate for walkers united them like nothing else ever could. When one of them bled, everyone bled.

Bard could still hear the horns´voices blaring from the deep, responding to the siren´s call for help, he could still feel the blood in the water clinging to his skin, he could still see Thranduil´s ruined face when he turned to his saviors with blood leaking from underneath his palm, deprived of half the sight forever.

_I can´t see. I can´t see. I can´t see._

He had kept repeating it over and over and over and it had haunted Bard´s dreams for weeks to come.

_I can´t see._

Bard pressed his hand against his chest where the trauma started to gather. He recalled Thranduil´s fingers digging into his skin, his cries and the dead silence when he had lost consciousness.

And Myra holding him for what felt like thousand years after he had returned home.

Myra.

There was a big black hole in his memories of her. Bard remembered so much about finding Thranduil on that rock but finding Myra... There was nothing. As if he had fallen into a coma and barely woken up in time for the funeral.

Bard took a deep breath and forced the bad memories at the very back of his mind. He needed to focus at the present right now.

_It´s hard to believe we are still enemies after that. After everything._

Those whalers had died screaming but it hadn´t brought Thranduil´s wife back, same as later sinking a merchant ship and drowning twenty men hadn´t brought back Bard´s.

_Why did I thought of her right now._

* * *

It was almost funny how they clinged to them for dear life. Suddenly being a mermaid didn´t make her a monster but a savior. _Any other day they would gut me on their fishmarket for entertainment but today they are happy to see me_ , Sigrid thought with a bitter mix of satisfaction and disgust as she dragged a whimpering overweight man to the shore. Every muscle in her body ached. She turned to Legolas. His face was like made of stone even though he currently struggled under the weight of three hysterical old ladies who failed to understand that he would bring them to safety one by one if they had just given him a chance.

Sigrid could tell he fought an urge to drag them down instead of up. She didn´t blame him. A glimpse of her mother´s body flashed through her mind every time she looked at the beach where the survivors coughed and exhaled ridiculous amounts of water through their noses.

No matter what she had told Legolas, she didn´t want to save them just so their corpses wouldn´t spoil the water in the shallows. She wanted to rub in their terrified faces that she was better than them.

A scream cut through the roaring of the waves. A young man"s voice. Sigrid couldn´t see where it came from.

"Legolas! Can you see anyone?"

"I can barely see anything at all," he replied, panting, " but I think someone is still hanging on those rocks over there. Why are people so _heavy_?!"

Sigrid shielded her eyes against the water, searching for the boy or man or whoever was left behind.

"Nobody's going to even thank me for this, " she sighed and headed into the waves.

_But I´m going to either save everyone or noone at all._

Legolas was right. She found a boy at the rocks. He was holding on with the last drops of his strength and his bloody fingers slipped at the very moment Sigrid appeared behind him and caught him.

He didn´t frantically wrap himself around her as everyone else, basically boycotting her movements, on the contrary. He did all that he could so the could comfortably carry him to the shore despite all hell breaking loose around them.

When she put him down on the sand, Sigrid got a look at his face. He certainly wasn´t older than her. Reddish brown hair stuck to his pale freckled face, making it look like he was bleeding. He was dressed nicely. Probably rich.

"And surprisingly cute for a walker," Sigrid whispered.

He opened his eyes and looked straight at her. Her instincts kicked in and she was gone with one flip of her tail.

Legolas was nervously circling under the water and when Sigrid came rushing in in an explosion of bubbles, he could almost hear the weight that dropped from his heart.

"Are you alright?! Did you get him?"

Sigrid nodded. "We got everybody. Thanks, Legolas. I´m sorry this took such a weird turn."

His face lit up. " Are you kidding me, this was awesome! I saw a storm, a ship crashed right there, I saw more people than I ever expected to see in my entire life... I probably shouldn´t tell anybody about it but it was amazing! I mean it was horrible, everything hurts, my eyes feel funny and those old ladies scratched me really badly, but it was amazing!"

He spun around like a five year old. Sigrid thought how pretty he was. Like something from a fairytale, something that should belong to heaven more than to the depths of the ocean where no one could see it.

_Why do they hate us when we have so much beauty to offer?_

The pretty face of the ginger boy flutered at the back of her mind. Before she had ran, she had caught a glimpse of his eyes. Very, very green.

_Why do we hate them when they have so much beauty to offer?_

"Sigrid?"

"Huh?"

"Where did you go?"

She rubbed her forehead. "Nowhere. Just thought about something. Not important. We should go. Before the fathers sound the alarm and send out search parties."

Legolas followed her down and for the first time seriously considered just telling her.

_´I like you.´ Too straightforward. No._

_´Sigrid, I like you.´ Better, doesn't come off like a grenade, but still not quite there._

_´Sigrid, we ve been friends for a while now and...´ Well that just sounds like a marriage proposal._

_´Do you think we could be more than friends?´ Okay this is the worst one so far. She´s going to think you want to mate with her, no._

_´Would you go out with me?´ She´s been going out with you for years. Dumb. No._

_I´m making it needlesly difficult for myself. I´ll just wait for a good moment. There is going to be plenty._ _I´m sure there is._


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The hell has frozen over and I finally produced another chapter! Stuff´s gonna get interesting soon, pinkie promise :3 Big thanks to everyone who has commented so far, it means a lot and gives me so much motivatioooooooooooon <3 Don´t hesitate to tell me anything!  
> I hope you´ll enjoy this chapter, tho not much is happening, hehe.

"I don´t see how my people will settle for a truce just because our children sort of like each other,“ Thranduil said.

He was leaning on a rock within the arm´s reach from Bard. He had purposely sat on the left, so the ruined part of his face was turned away. Bard appreciated it. Definitely more than Thranduil´s attitude about the thing.

"I have not suggested a truce,“ he said, "I have suggested we leave our kids out of it, so they can be happy together if they decide so.“

Thranduil scoffed. "And then what? Should we fish out some romantic boy´s copy of Romeo and Juliet out of the sea and proceed according to scenario?“

"You know I could just as well be talking to the rock,“ Bard frowned, "maybe it would show more understanding.“ Thranduil chuckled bitterly.

"Oh I am overflowing with understanding, my dear neighbor. I understand Legolas had taken a great liking to your daughter. I see it in his eyes every time he comes home telling me he was not with her. I understand this is a childhood crush. But I need you to understand thing also. This cannot develop into anything bigger. Our tribes won´t stand for it.“

"I don´t have a tribe, Thranduil,“ Bard said sharply, "I am not a king. My tribe doesn´t give half a jack about what I am doing. Maybe you could make it so neither would yours. You are a king, no? Than be a king and make way for our children.“

He pushed himself up and headed towards the lighter waters. They had spent a god hour or so talking and Bard had noticed the conversation had started to turn in circles after some ten minutes. Thranduil had kept stubbornly rephrasing the single thought he had about Sigrid and Legolas and was clearly adamant on doing so.

Bard would be wasting his time.

* * *

They brought everyone into the mansion, including the staff of the ship. Erik insisted. Everyone was not only drenched and cold, but they whispered among themselves about the mermaid and he would very much prefer to keep those whisper in between the walls.

He saw her face for a second before she ran but it was barely a smudge at the back of his memory. She had very bright eyes, that much he recalled clearly.

Sam Redgrave showed up immediately, accompanied by several of his men, the mayor and a bunch of nurses carrying blankets, bandages and random bits of equipment they could carry in their arms. Everyone was soaking wet from the rain and dragged mud all over the polished floors of the mayor´s house, but nobody cared about that.

The mayor rushed over to his son, gripping him and turning him around to check for any damage, for the lack of a better word.

"Are you alright, Erik?“

"I´m okay, father, just scratches,“ the boy mumbled, "don´t worry. Go and talk to people. Calm them down. Everyone saw us crash, I think they would appreciate some reassurance that nobody died.“

The old man nodded and rushed away back into the rain and Sam wondered, once again, about the weird dynamics of their relationship. Erik was fifteen but ordered his father around, because the old man was virtually useless. He was the stereotypical jolly round fellow who was beloved by the people as a mayor, but once there was some actual _mayoring_ to be done, the same people would turn to his child. He himself would turn to his child.

Once the mayor disappeared outside, Erik turned to Sam. "I suppose he´s going to be back any second, so I need you to listen now. We were saved by mermaids. People cannot know this, I can´t predict the reaction, alright? I need you to go and tell your men to go around and very very clearly let everyone know that this information needs to stay inside this room. At least until I figure out what to do.“

"I don´t think spreading said information among my men is the best idea,“ Sam whispered, "they get drunk and they´ll talk. I´ll tell them something vague, assuming your crew will know what they are talking about if they reffer to it as ´it´?“

"They will, you do that,“ Erik nodded and patted him on the shoulder, "I´ll try to keep my dad outside for a while.“

He walked out of the door and Sam felt like he was simply leaving the situation in his hands. He didn´t like it. Because it wasn´t a great situation.

He turned to his men and had no idea what vague something he was going to tell them. There were too many people.

"This is ridiculous,“ Sam mumbled to himself and proceeded to climb onto the nearest table. "Aaron, take your men out and wait there. The rest of you, listen up.“

* * *

Sigrid realized she really really really wanted to talk about what had happened with someone. Specifically about the boy. It was making her almost angry how much he kept popping back up in her mind, how incomplete his image was and how much she wanted to have it whole. She would catch herself doing something perfectly mediocre and suddenly thinking _what´s his name_ , _how old is he_ , _is he really okay_?

And then she would stop and shake her head to get back into reality.

It was strange. Legolas had never done this to her once and Sigrid did sort of fancy him. She could really use some girl talk, unfortunately the only girl around she could actually talk to, was Tilda, and she was busy being feral.

Bard was also out of the question. He returned home in a mood that could be described only as glum. He wouldn´t stop frowning even at dinner and looked sunken deep into some pretty dark thoughts. He didn´t even notice the crossfire of worried looks from Bain and Sigrid.

Tilda didn´t appear to care, she was happily gnawing on a bone and that was it.

Sigrid stared at her own fish and came to an inevitable conclusion – she would have to talk to Bain. Which was fine. She liked talking to Bain. He was her brother after all.

The question was how much understanding she could expect from him.

"You do realize that once dad finds out about this, he´s going to completely flip, right?“ he said after she gave him the short version.

They were aimlessly flapping around in the shallows, far enough from the beach not to be seen by the locals. Sigrid was leaning on a smooth rock while Bain found himself a small colorful fish and chased it around like a five-year old.

"I should make extra sure he doesn´t find out then,“ Sigrid said, "but you are focusing on the wrong part.“

"Right, I should focus on the part where you are crushing on a walker you have seen for five seconds,“ Bain chuckled.

"Should I have not talked to you about this?“ his sister frowned at him and the boy´s face grew serious immediately.

"No, no, it´s fine, sis, I´m here for you. It´s just... kinda funny, I can´t help it! Don´t be mad.“

"I´m not,“ she sighed, "I just want you to give me advice and not be cheeky about it.“ Bain stopped chasing the fish and nested himself next to her.

"Fine,“ he said, "I don´t know how I can help since I´m two years younger than you, but I´ll try. Here it goes. First of all, don´t tell dad. At least not right away. Second of all, if you like _him_ , go for it, but be super careful about it. Because this is the land we´re talking about. The fact that you saved his ass might not be enough, especially now when Tilda´s out there eating the fishermen. The worst thing that can officially happen is... well, that you die, but that´s not really where I was heading with that, I wanted to say ´get your heart broken´ but we might just as well be real about this.“

Sigrid nodded. "Agreed. I have to be real about it.“

"But before you go up there, you gotta tell me,“ Bain added, "because someone has to know where you are.“

"Don´t worry. I´m not going to just pack my bags and leave at once,“ she assured him but stared somewhere towards the horizon, undermining her own words a little. "I´m going to explore a bit at first. Plus, even if things went well and we felt the spark and all that, I am still missing one crucial thing.“

"What is that?“

"Legs, Bain.“

"Oh. Right.“

* * *

Cleaning the beach in the dead of night was the dumbest thing Sam could possibly imagine. The fisherman´s body was barely cold and there they were, going into the water, very much aware of what lived in it. But the mayor had insisted. Sam knew why. There were chest full od expensive fabrics and jewellery on Eric´s ship and his father was now scared someone else than his men would find them and keep them. That had become his biggest worry by the end of the day. His son and a bunch of other people almost dying in a horrible storm, that was on the second rail now. The material goods had taken the first place.

Armed with torches, they headed into the shallow water near the coast, looking for anything sparkly or wooden and intact.

Sam noticed how the men kept swerving near the beach. They were afraid and maybe didn´t even know it. Sam didn´t blame them, nobody wanted to be dismembered by a carnivorous merchild.

He was knees deep in the water. Shells and shards of broken wood were crunching under his boots unnaturally loudly. No sight of any treasure chests or jewellery. He had been sceptical about it from the beginning, anything left from that shipwreck would be ruined by the salt anways...

"Sir, I think I see something!“ It was Aaron.

He was one of those who dared to go more than ankles deep. Sam walked over to him and squinted at whatever his underling was pointing to. There was a little bit of sparkle, just a tiny flash of it, sitting on a dark blob of a shape, most likely a rock.

"Looks kinda shiny in the moonlight, don´t you think?“ Aaron said.

Sam nodded. "Could be something. It´s pretty far though, I´m not sure we want to go that deep for some random glint.“

"I´m pretty sure we don´t, sir,“ Aaron chuckled, looking over his shoulder at his troop, wandering around the beach, pretending so hard to be useful it was almost funny.

"But if it is something, it could be gone by the morning.“

"If I may, sir, it´s piece of jewellery. It doesn´t matter. We can always say we didn´t find anything.“

Sam couldn´t really argue with that. It really was that simple. But it was also utterly ridiculous. This was their beach, they lived here for ages, their kids played down here, this was a _rock in the sea they were talking about, nothing bloody more_.

If he does nothing to provoke her, she shouldn´t hurt him, right? If she´s out there.

But the man before had been literally napping in his boat, not moving at all and she attacked him.

"Sir? Sir, are you okay?“ Aaron snapped his fingers in front of Sam´s face. "You kinda blanked out there.“

Sam rubbed his temples. "Sorry. Just thinking. About how I might go over there and check, because... I don´t know, principle or something.“

"You wanna declare war on that little monster, sir?“ Aaron smirked.

"No, I just wanna see if there´s something expensive on that goddamn rock, so I don´t have to lie to my boss, that´s all,“ Sam replied, "hold my coat.“

The rock wasn´t as far as it seemed. Still, the water reached Sam´s chest before he got to it, and his arm started cramping a bit from holding the torch above the water.

He was really glad it payed off – a torn necklace got caught on the rock. Sam even recognized it. It used to belong to Erik´s grandmother. How it had gotten on that ship, who knew. Who cared. Sam didn´t.

He sighed in relief as he reached for it. "Oh you better have sentimental value, you little piece of -“

Two eyes, each the size of the moon, stared at him from behind the rock.

Sam froze on the spot.

The little mermaid was holding onto the other end of the necklace with her tiny grey hand and didn´t seem like she was too eager to let go. She blinked, very slowly, and her look shifted to the torch. In its light Sam could see her face and it was disturbingly similar to the tiny humans that were running in the streets of the city every day. It took a second and much longer look to recognize the differences.

Sam didn´t know what to do. She wasn´t moving, just stared at him for a few seconds and then at the torch, then at him again and back at the torch, while holding the necklace, with no particular expression. But Sam could imagine she would be very fast once she moved.

Definitely faster than him.

Aaron called him from the beach. He sure as hell wasn´t getting a response at the moment.

She still stared at him, with all the determination of a statue.

"Why don´t you... keep the shiny, huh,“ Sam said very slowly and very quietly, pushing the necklace towards her.

She looked down, then back him and smiled. Sam was pretty sure no children, regardless of the species, normally didn´t have that many teeth.

Then she grabbed the necklace, flipped her tail and was gone.

Sam pressed his forehead against the rock and sighed. "So I´m _still_ gonna have to lie to my boss. Bloody great.“


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello!  
> So it's been a month, I'm knees deep in schoolwork and blah, yet here comes a new chapter. I needed to jumpstart the action a little, so...yeah. I hope you´ll enjoy it :3 Lemme know what you think!

Sigrid disappeared three weeks after that.

At first no one noticed. Those three week had been pretty uneventful which Bard in hindsight considered a huge red flag. After all, Tilda had still been happily terrorizing the fishermen around the coast, the waves had been still bringing various parts of the crashed ship to the beach as a reminder of the fresh trauma, and everything should have been upside do and at least on its way to chaos, if not already in it with one foot.

But it wasn’t. Things were calm and therefore noone expected anything malevolent to happen to anyone.

On top of that, everyone knew Sigrid was sort of a free spirit. Bard himself at first assumed she had just spent the night outside, looking at the moon, counting the stars, waiting for the sunrise or whatever.

It wouldn’t be the first time after all.

But then she didn’t show up the next day and not event he day after that.

Bard skipped worrying and jumped right into panic.

Bain was sent to the shark tribes further to the west, Tilda accompanied Bard to the neighbors as far as the eastern shallows, occupied by the coral reefs. Sometimes sharks went there too, to the great despair of locals, so Bard knew he wan’t going to be welcome, but he had to try every possibility. They encountered a migrating school of small silvery merpeople. They barely spoke the common language and it took Bard very long to even persuade them he was not there to hunt them ad neither was his feral offspring. They hadn’t seen any other sharks.

Bain wasn’t having much more success. He heard the phrase "don’t worry, she’ll come back“ around fifteen times but nobody had provided him with any useful information whatsoever.

"I told her to tell me where she’s going, didn’t I?“ he mumbled, angry and frustrated, as he was making his way back home. "She’s supposed to be the responsible child!“

He tried to recall every conversation they had over the past few weeks and look for clues, hints, but there was nothing. She hadn’t even mentioned the red haired boy that much anymore but Bain was almost sure he had something to do with her disappearance.

* * *

"Shark people are incredible. The strength of the fish with the temper of the human. This little tiny thing, a child, is tearing apart our boats, her family can take down a ship. Don't you think it's strange that a shy, rather timid fish does these things? Shark wouldn’t do that, you know. It’s the human part that drives this.“

Erik got up from the table and started circling a room, resembling a tiny red vulture. Sam watched him with a mild unease. The boy’s father was hosting a dinner for the local créme de la créme, while Erik was here, surrounded by the town’s toughest fishermen, women who lost their husbands or sons to the sea, and old-timers. These people had one thing in common – they really, really, really hated the merpeople.

Sam felt kind of misplaced here.

"Some recent events have given me an idea,“ Erik continued, "but to make it happen, I will need every single one of you. I won’t reveal my exact plans yet, but I can promise you you will come out of this stinking rich, if everything clicks. What I would like to know now is – do you trust me?“

A murmur of agreement briefly raised in the room. Sam wasn’t part of it but Erik hadn’t noticed. He looked pleased.

"Wonderful,“ he exclaimed and smiled, changing into a little boy for a second, "in that case, you all will be contacted when necessary. Now, if the wonderful ladies could stay for a little longer, I’d like to introduce you to your new jobs.“

The men dispersed, excitedly murmuring about the prospect of gold Erik had just given them, while the women remained seated, slightly confused. Sam stayed too. Erik saw him but didn’t oppose.

"A young lady has recently joined me in this house,“ he said, "and with my father being a widower and me having no sisters, I fear she might feel lonely without an appropriate company. Therefore I’d like you to be that company.“

The women exchanged a few looks, beginning to whisper among themselves. None of them was young enough to be an appropriate company for a young lady and Sam had a pinching feeling that by „company“ Erik sort of meant „surveillance“.

"I’ll provide you with a new wardrobe and of course you will be payed handsomely,“ Erik continued, „and I want you to keep my lady company any time I can’t do so.“

Sam chuckled into his palm imagining Scaly Suzie in frills and lace-rimmed sleeves. She had to be like two hundred years old by now and all of her teeth were her fourth. She already went through two sets of fake ones. She enjoyed dressing in huge and itchy woolen sweaters, smoking cigars and swearing like a sailor. Any "young lady“ would get scurvy just from breathing the same air as her.

"Will we meet this girl before we make our decision?“ the old woman asked because nothing Erik or anyone else had ever said was an order to her.

"Of course,“ Erik nodded, „she’s just getting dressed. And before she gets here, there are two things you need to know about her.“

Sam straightened up in his chair. He could smell crucial information from miles away. Erik finally stopped circling the room and stopped in front of the window, peering out into the garden in a manner suitable for a much older person.

"First of all, she’s mute. Second of all, she’s our way to a fortune. So be nice to her.“

* * *

"Anything?“

"No. We even talked to the jellyfish. Nobody’s seen her.“ Bain sighed. "Alright. There is one place left to go.“

"Of course, of course.“ Bard rubbed his temples.

He had been talking to people for hours and began to develop a headache.

"Come to think of it, I don’t know why we just didn’t go there right away,“ Bain continued, „I I mean, Sigrid and Legolas are like conjoined twins. If anyone knows where she is, it has to be him.“

"That’s the thing, if he knew, I assume... or, hope that he would come and tell us,“ Bard replied, "though who knows. Given how things are between us...“

He turned to Bain. "You are staying here and watching over Tilda. I can’t possibly take her there with me, she would start a war.“

As he descended into Thranduil’s realm, however, Bard was surprised to find the glowing kingdom in disarray. Swarms of this and that rushed in all directions, it was blinding and confusing and Bard immediately found a sturdy structure to latch onto, so he wouldn’t get swept off.

Either everyone was majorly overreacting or something was very wrong.

Bard made his way into the cave where he had last spoken with Thranduil but nobody was there. At this point, he felt like an intruder. He swam back outside, trying to return in the direction he had come in, but the flashing stripes of feeble light produced by quickly passing people were incredibly confusing. Everyone was shouting, but mostly in dialect.

Bard could pick up very little but could’ve sworn he heard Legolas’name a few times. He quickly slipped through the group of those disturbing jellyfish soldiers and headed deeper where the biggest ruckus seemed to be taking place.

At the very center of it was Thranduil, looking like a frilly cloud of purple light, barking orders everywhere. When he noticed Bard, his expression changed in a way that made Bard doubt, whether his shark half would be enough in a confrontation.

"If you have come here to discuss our children’s relationship again, you really couldn’t have picked a worse time,“ Thranduil said sharply after moving closer.

"I have not,“ Bard opposed, "I have come just to ask if anyone around here has possibly seen Sigrid. She disappeared.“

Thranduil apparently wasn’t prepared for that. "Disappeared?“

Bard nodded. "Disappeared. Hasn’t been home in days. We thought maybe Legolas would know something about it.“

"You might be right about that,“ the deep sea king scoffed, his tone once again rather hostile, "because Legolas hasn’t been home in days either.“

"So that’s what all of this is about,“ Bard gestured around, "I have to say, it’s really go big or go home with you, isn’t it…“

"I can assure you, when it comes to my child, I’m always going big,“ Thranduil replied dryly.

"Well, we certainly aren’t going home ourselves. I’ve been on the open ocean and reefs and who knows where else,“ Bard frowned.

"Not a trace of her anywhere though, so here I am,“ he added in a slightly defeated manner.

"I haven’t had any luck with Legolas either,“Thranduil sighed, rubbing his one healthy eye.

He looked like he needed some serious sleep.

"Do you think they could be together?“ Bard asked quietly.

"I really hope so. I’d rather have Legolas be lost with her than all alone,“ Thranduil admitted.

It was really sad that this felt like some sort of a closeness, for the first time in ages. Bard noticed that and it seemed Thranduil did too.

"I’ll be going then,“ Bard said, shaking the unusual moment off, "good luck.“

Thranduil looked like he had maybe hoped for a different reaction. "Right. Thank you. Good luck to you too.“

* * *

Sam kept looking at the girl and couldn’t help a strange feeling of familiarity. She was sitting on the porch of Erik’s house, flipping through a history book, completely silent but clearly aware of everything happening around her.

The women around her kept chatting, paying very little attention to her. She didn’t seem to mind. She looked lovely, in a powder pink silk dress and with long hair pulled back with a ribbon. Her skin had a strange greyish undertone but it just as well could have been the shadow.

Sam could swear he had seen her somewhere before.

Sometimes she looked up and smiled at him. The way Erik had talked about her, however, kept creeping up in Sam’s mind.

_A way to a fortune._

There weren’t many options concerning her identity then. But whenever Sam thought about it, he always got distracted by the familiarity of her face.

Erik eventually joined her on the porch, sat down next to her and began to quietly talk to her about picture and passages in the text. She payed close attention, nodded occasionally and smiled a lot.

They were very cute together, that was definitely true, and Erik was showing his softer side, which was probably very healthy for him.

_A way to a fortune._

That phrase just kept coming back.

Sam had always liked Erik, at least more than his jolly round and rather spineless father, but that couldn’t stop him from feeling a little uncomfortable around the boy from time to time. He clearly had ulterior motives for courting this young lady and a fifteen-year-old boy shouldn’t be having ulterior motives for such things.

Not to mention she was utterly oblivious to it and it just wasn’t fair, in any possible scenario.

"Sam? Are you with us?“

Erik’s face was suddenly inches away. The girl stood behind him, like someone who expects to be introduced would – a little shy and a little impatient.

"I zoned out,“ Sam admitted,“my bad.“

"I’d like to introduce you to someone,“Erik said and stepped aside, gesturing towards the girl, "this is Sigrid.“


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello!   
> Here comes another chapter! Thank you for the feedback, I really appreciate it :3 I´m trying to jumpstart the plot here, so this is a bit cliffhanger-heavy, which is not something I necessarily like but well, maybe it´ll sit right with you guys! 
> 
> Enjoy and lemme know your thoughts and feelings (I mean they can be about the weather, talk to me, I´m down XD)!

Everybody knew about the sea witches but nobody talked about this particular sea witch. She lived on the reef, aside from all the other. She wasn’t evil but was one flip of a fin away from it. Her kind, the beautiful yet treacherous lionfish family, was carnivorous and had little restraint when it came to cannibalism, but she only ever ate fish. Still, her predatory nature was undeniable and the reef community was afraid of her.

And not only the reef.

It was said she was older than most of her kind and wiser than anyone. For her snow white fins that gave the illusion of glow they called her Lady of Light. Among the elderly (and those who read a lot) she was also known as Galadriel.

She had probably seen Bard and Thranduil coming long before they knew they were going to see her. Neither of them was happy to do that. Nobody was ever happy to see the sea witch.

It was Thranduil‘s idea. The deep sea folk had closer relationship with magical and mystical, such as sea witches. Some tribes even had their own shaman of sorts. Sharks were superstitious, but avoided this kind of thing if possible. Therefore Thranduil spent hours contemplating whether Bard would even agree to it.

But there really wasn’t any other option at this point. It had been days since the children disappeared and it was becoming apparent they were not anywhere in the nearby waters. Anything beyond the nearby waters was automatically bad.

Thranduil didn´t sleep much the night he decided to go to the shark territory. He tried to summon any at least remotely positive memory they had together.

There weren´t any.

Or maybe there were but they were so worn out and faded he could no longer read them. It was the cold rough stone in cloud of red water that kept coming back every time Thranduil closed his eyes.

That was the most vivid memory of Bard he had.

He caught himself picking the scars on the mangled side of his face.

He was doing it again as he was hesitantly approaching the caves where Bard’s family settled. Up here, in the light, his body and fins were practically translucent, he felt like the shark people who passed him couldn´t even see him. He felt unwelcomed and didn´t doubt for a second that he was unwelcomed. Bard had to feel the same way every time he had come to see him in the deep.

Thranduil was incredibly relieved when he reached the caves. The light was too much. His eyes were hurting, he rubbed the aggressively and when he looked up, there was a boy´s face in front of his. Bain looked very tired and good ten years older than he was, due to the shadows and heavy bags under his eyes.

"I´ll get da,“ he said simply and disappeared into the cave.

Thranduil hesitantly followed him, unsure about whether he should. A small fast thing flew past him, leaving a trail off blood behind it. Thranduil couldn´t see it, just smell it.

"Tilda, slow down!“ Bard shouted as he appeared at the entrance. "That better not be a limb!“

"I assume you´re going through a transition,“ Thranduil said quietly, semi-casually clonging to a wall. „How are things around here?“

"The fact that Tilda is the least of our problems right now should give you some idea how things are around here,“ Bard said sharply, "two of my men got killed yesterday when they crossed some fishermen´s trail. They were harpooned because those people thought they were fish. They tossed them back into the sea, of course. Instead of finding my child I came across two corpses. Things are just fantastic around here, Thranduil, thank you so much for asking!“

He took a deep breath and leaned against the wall, hiding his face in his hands for a second.

"Any trace of Legolas?“ he mumbled into his palms.

"Would I be here if there was any?“ Thranduil replied bitterly. "However, I have an idea how to proceed. Because it seems we have exhausted all the other options.“

* * *

Erik stood before the room full of people, clad in his best jacket, with hair neatly cascading down his boyish shoulders, as confident as ever.

"I will transform this town into a seaside metropolis, a heart of trade, the great treasury of the land. Soon I will be able to offer you goods that will bring you riches beyond your wildest imaginations.“

_Why is he talking like a fictional villain_ , Sam thought to himself. He hated that, the tone, the choice of vocabulary, how proud the mayor looked, as his kid stood in his place...

Sam got up, gestured at one of his men to take his spot on this side of the room, and left.

He found Sigrid outside, sitting on a blanket under a parasol, surrounded by more books. Sam would swear the girl had been reading since the second she had gotten here. Her companions were nowhere to be seen, Sam figured they dispersed as soon as Erik stopped looking in their direction. Sigrid didn´t look like she missed them.

"M´lady,“ Sam bowed slightly when he approached the blanket.

She nodded back, put aside the book and patted the spot next to her. Sam didn´t expect that.

"Oh, should I...?“

More nodding and patting. She even moved a bit to the side, to make a space for him, which was really unnecessary, but cute. Sam hesitantly slumped next to her, unsure why she wanted him to do so and very nervous since he had never spoken to a mute person.

To his great relieve, she pulled out a notebook and a pencil. She scribbled the first short message. Her handwriting was little unsure, too neat, as if she just learned it, and her grammar and vocabulary overall quite simple.

_Saw you around. Nice to meet you. Soldier?_

„The pleasure is really all mine, miss,“ Sam smiled at the handwriting, "more of a policeman, I´d like to think. And a bit of a bodyguard too. My name is Sam.“

_Sigrid. You protect Erik?_

"I am trying, yes. And now you too, of course. Naturally. We´ll do our best to make you feel welcome.“

Sigrid smiled and wrote _thank you_.

Sam nodded towards the books. "You have been reading a lot, I can see.“

_Trying to learn about history. And practicing language. I studied before but I need practice._

"I see. You are a foreigner then?“ Sam raised his eyebrows at the words. "I don´t intend to pry, just curious,“ he added quickly but she shook her head, smiling.

_Foreigner, yes. But from around here._ She smirked this time, as she handed him the notebook.

"That is... cryptic,“ Sam laughed while she grinned at him like a five year old.

_It is a secret_ , she scribbled quicly, _cannot tell you more_.

"Don´t worry about it, miss, as I said, I don´t intend to pry.“

_Can you tell me about Erik? What is he like?_

Sam cleared his throat. It took him a while to answer. "He´s a fine young man,“ he eventually said, "a little too mature for his age, he... he does many things his father should be doing. His father is the mayor, but I suppose you know that. Erik is the leader, the real mayor here and he´s fifteen, so that is honestly, kind of embarassing for all of us. When I met you, I hoped he would drop all that adult stuff and just be a teenager with a girlfriend, but apparently that is not happening...“

He sighed and turned to Sigrid. She listened with a serious, attentive expression. Here, in the direct sunlight, just barely obstructed by the parasol, Sam could see that her skin indeed lacked the peachy pink perfection of local or other smalltown girls. She was tanned and there really was a strange greyish undertone and even some small scratches and scars here and there, thin white lines, barely noticeable.

Her pencil hovered hesitantly above the paper, before she wrote the next message.

_I like him._

"I think he likes you too, but honestly, miss, it´s not my place to say,“ Sam chuckled.

A wave of chatter poured out the door, as the meeting ended and the company rushed out. Sam and Sigrid watched Erik shake some hands and say a few goodbyes before he headed towards them. Sam quickly picked himself up, nodded to Sigrid who gave him a wave, and swiftly marched back to his task, to oversee the safe departure of Erik´s guests. They seemed to be majorly excited about something, murmuring among themselves all the way to the docks.

Sam turned back just to see Erik kissing Sigrid´s hand, while her companions, who appeared quickly out of nowhere, were picking up the things.

Aaron patted his boss on the shoulder. "Sir? What do you think of this, sir?“

Sam didn´t understand. "What do I think of what?“ "Weren´t you isnide, sir?“

"I was. For like five minutes,“ Sam sighed, "don´t tell anyone. Aaron, but recently I´ve been really bloody uncomfortable around Erik.“

Aaron chuckled nervously. "I completely understand, sir. I mean, who would be comfortable around a _child_ who has no trouble conducting business with these people...“

"Could you define _these people_ for me? I´m sort of lost about what was going on today, I had never seen any of these men in my life,“ Sam whispered, leaning closer to his underling.

Aaron actually looked slightly offended by his boss´ momentary ignorance. "These are the O´Marley brothers, sir. They practically run the shark finning industry.“

* * *

The sea witch looked like a gentle creature made from glass and feathers but Bard instinctively kept his distance. She hovered over a cracked mirror in a heavy silver frame, that had to sink down there from a shipwreck centuries ago.

"The children have not visited me, unfortunately,“ she said, "however, I can see them and where they are.“

"There is a price though, isn´t it,“ Thranduil said.

Galadriel looked at him with a half smile. "If you wish to follow where they went, there is a price. I shall take none, the place will take many.“

Bard sprung forward. "Where did they go?!“

"I think you already know,“ she replied.

Thranduil turned to Bard, clueless. " _Do_ you know?“

"They are on land, aren´t they,“ Bard whispered after a silence that had to last minutes, not wanting to see Galadriel´s reaction or Thranduil´s reaction or anybody else´s reaction, not even his own, reflecting in the old broken mirror.

Galadriel was silent, just floated there like a cloud of light and didn´t say a thing. Which was a very resounding yes, of course.

When Thranduil came to that realization, everything about him seemed to sink into itself. It was like watch a flower wilt within two seconds.

"You _knew_?!“ he spat in Bard´s direction. "Why did we even come here if you already _knew_?!“

"I didn´t know anything!“ Bard screamed. "It was just a bad, bad feeling that grew ever since I realized Sigrid wasn´t with you! That was all I had! A bad, rotten feeling!“

Galadriel´s hand softly landed on his shoulder and he realized everything inside him was boiling.

"They are alive,“ she said softly, "as far as I can see...“

She didn´t finish the sentence and for a brief moment her eyes drifted off into nothing. When she came back to herself, there was no half smile anymore.

"How do we get there, how... how do we bring them back? How does it work, there has to be a way!“ Thranduil inquired, holding onto his calm for dear life. "What is the price?“

Galadriel circled them, stopping inches from Thranduil´s face. "From you, the land will take sight.“

"From you,“ she turned to Bard, "the land will take everything.“


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I.. have an exam tomorrow. So here comes another chapter! This one is pretty uneventful, I'd say. I hope you' ll enjoy it anyways :3 Thanks for the comments, as usually don't hesitate to tell me anything!   
> Love y'all!

"There used to be a tradition of young mermaids and mermen giving up their voices for human legs, so they could walk on land with their loved ones. But walking was painful and their human darlings soon grew weary of their eternal silence, so it always ended up in heartbreak. And suicide. After all, their new lives were filled with nothing but pain and frustration. Would you like some algae?“

Bard looked at Galadriel with enough disbelief to fill another ocean. She floated around almost absent-mindedly while dropping these horrible details on them. Thranduil, on the other hand, appeared to be pulled apart but a dozen disagreeing forces inside him. Fidgeting from place to place, fins fluttering with abundance of emotions that threatened to explode. Bard had to grab his arm to at least keep him in one place.

"Some sea witches would still take these silly prices. Some of us, however, have hearts,“ Galadriel continued softly, "and to stay on land is difficult for us as it is, we do not see reason to make it even worse. But your children did not come to _me_.“

Bard took a deep breath, trying to keep his voice steady."So my daughter is on land _and_ mute? Is that what´s happening?“

"Unfortunately,“ Galadriel nodded, "unless she had given up something else.“

"What did you mean when you said the land will take my sight from me?“ Thranduil asked, unsure about whether he really wanted to know the answer. "Did Legolas loose his vision for legs?“

Galadriel looked more through him than at him and tilted her head a little, as if in deep thoughts. "Your eyes are hurting already. You simply will not be able to see in broad daylight on shore.“

"But he's been to the shore before,“ Bard opposed, "we've been above the surface, he could see fine until... well, that happened...“

"That was for a brief time,“ Thranduil replied, "and during the night. She is right. I have never been in direct sunlight, Bard. I can´t find Legolas when I'm blind!“

"It's fine, it's fine, calm down,“ Bard squeezed his arm again, although he had to admit it was ruining their chances before they even had any.

He wasn't going to ask what Galadriel had meant in his case. He didn't want to know any details. In fact, he was trying to forget what she had said.

"Are you willing to follow your children to the land then?“ Galadriel asked.

"Absolutely,“ Bard replied immediately. Thranduil just nodded. Galadriel kept looking at and through for a few more seconds and then disappeared under a canopy of corals. Bard, still holding Thranduil´s arm, felt obliged to say something.

"I'm going to stay with you, until we find Legolas. Just wanted to make that clear, in case you thought otherwise, based on our longterm relationship... which is not great.“

"Don´t make this decision now, Bard,“ Thranduil replied bitterly, "because I _will_ be a burden and you _will_ end up hating me once we set foot on dry land. Before you make such heroic proclamations, wait and see.“

He freed his arm from Bard´s grasp and shuffled further from him. He hated this. He hated what he said, but he also hated that it was exactly how it felt and he hated that he was right. Bard just couldn´t see it yet.

"Unfortunately, Thranduil, this doesn't appear to be optional,“ Bard said sharply, "I don't care if it feels belittling to you, I am sticking with you whether you like it or not.“

He turned to Galadriel, who reappeared, inexplicably cradling a starfish. "What do we have to do?“

* * *

Bard opened his eyes. His skin was on fire. He moved his fingers and felt sand.

_Right. They were doing this._

He lifted himself on his elbows, scraping his skin on the sand and coughing. He could see Thranduil not far from him, clinging to a rock, half his body still in the water. Bard wanted to move towards him but a sharp pain shooting through his spine immediately changed his mind.

_Right. The legs._

Galadriel hadn't been lying about the suffering, that much was clear. As much as contracting a muscle was painful. Bard ran both his hand up and down the shape of his new legs, briefly stopping at the scar splitting his kneecap in half. He used to have a scar just like that on his tail. It was a relief to find something familiar on the strange new shape.

There was a soaking wet ball of clothes by his right hand, tied to his wrist with a piece of string. Of course. Skin wasn´t enough up here. Bard found two jackets, two shirts and two pairs of pants inside, all very ragged and barely holding together, but good enough to make them pass at least for beggars.

There were no shoes, but Bard couldn't think of putting anything on his feet anyway.

He tried to get dressed as fast as possible, but moving was becoming a bigger problem instead of getting easier. He slumped back into the sand afterwards, exhausted. At the moment he struggled to imagine how exactly he was going to find and save Sigrid when putting on pants almost felt like being murdered.

Thranduil groaned and Bard immediately sit up.

"Don't open your eyes!“ he shouted across the water.

"Bard?!“

"Yes, it's me! Don't open your eyes!“

He tore a strip of fabric off his shirt and held it against the sun. It wasn't as see-through as he anticipated. The protection it would offer to Thranduil´s eyes was debatable, but it was certainly better than nothing.

With several breaks and a lot of grunting Thranduil managed to reach the beach. There was a deep gash on his left side, probably from the initial contact with the rock, but he seemed to have barely noticed it.

"This is absolute hell,“ he gasped after collapsing into the sand, "this was not a good idea. Why does my chest hurt?!“

"Because _everything_ hurts! Put this on, shirt, pants“ Bard tossed him his clothes, "and don't open your eyes.“

The pier was barely visible from where they washed up and the coastal town not at all. There was nothing but long strip of beach, occasionally interrupted by a protruding rock. They had a place where they could learn how to walk before tottering off into the real deal. That was good news and it lifted Bard's mood a little.

"Bard,“ Thranduil said, extending his arm to him, "I found this in my pocket. What is it?“

There was a tiny, pearly blue scallop sitting in his palm.

Bard reached into his pocket and found his own. "Our way home, I assume. We probably shouldn't loose these.“

"I can't remember what she said about that,“ Thranduil admitted, "in fact, I don't remember much of anything...“

He struggled with the buttons a bit. His hair was in the way, coiling around all tangled and messy, way too long, as they both began to realize, now when it wasn't majestically floating around Thranduil's head.

"It's fine, leave it,“ Bard said when Thranduil tried to re-do the several last buttons.

He shuffled closer, still groaning under the dead weight of his new legs. Thranduil's hands found him by touch, he kept his eyes closed.

"Your skin is dry,“ he stated upon touching Bard's hands, "it feels weird.“

"It's still sort of grey though“ Bard sighed, looking at Thranduil‘s pale fingers against his own complexion, "and yours... I don´t know what to tell you, your skin is white and purple, I just hope you won't glow at night.“

"I don't _glow_ , Bard,“ Thranduil frowned, "at least not a lot.“

He flinched a little, when Bard pushed the hair out of the way, so he could tie the blindfold over his eyes. The scarred half of Thranduil´s face was quite haunting in the broad daylight. Bard tried not to touch the scars.

"This is just for now,“ he said, "we'll get you something that doesn't look like a ripped off sleeve. Which is incidentally exactly what this is.“

"I take it you have not changed your mind,“ Thranduil said, tilting his head so Bard could tighten the knot, "about sticking with me until the bitter end.“

"Doesn't have to be a bitter end, just a regular end is fine,“ Bard replied.

"Optimistic, are we?“ Thranduil adjusted the blindfold and very carefully opened his eyes.

It stung a bit but his eyeballs didn't melt, so that was a progress. It didn't make him feel any less weak or useless, however. Thranduil took a deep breath. Air tasted weird, coarse and salty. Touching the ground hurt. Sand was everywhere. The clothes were scratchy and horrible to touch. The sun was scorching hot. To merely think about spending entire days or even weeks out here... Legolas had to be miserable. But Thranduil would rather think of the possibility his child was miserable than the possibility his child was dead.

"It's us against the shore then,“ he sighed and began to pull his hair together. It was too long. He would prefer to just cut it away.

* * *

Sam closed another book and a cloud of dust went poof around his fingers. He had been getting one confirmation after the other. Shark finning was illegal almost everywhere and frowned upon generally.

Because it was disgusting and vile, of course, and every reasonable human being could see that.

But the O´Marley name kept popping up everywhere. Usually with large numbers and currency signs next to it. Erik talking to these people was absolutely not a good sign.

Sam was shoving the books back into their spots on the shelves and was cursing himself for having left that room earlier.

The librarian was frowning at him when he was finally leaving, covered in dust from books nobody had read for years. It was Sunday and the library closed at four. It was five minutes after four now.

Sam waved at Aaron, who stood at his post like the good soldier he was, and headed straight for the beach. Lately he was starting to realize there was very little to be guarded in this town, but whenever it was sunny, he could always count on reckless kids bruising their knees and elbows on the beach. He found a rock by the pier, in the shade, and made himself as comfortable as possible.

A ball rolled over to him and he pushed it back to a tiny girl in two fluffy pigtails.

"Be careful,“ he said, she nodded and ran off.

Children didn't worry that much about shark people, mostly because they were shielded from ninety-nine percent of the stuff that happened. At the same time, it was children who often came acros a limb or some other body part on the beach. Sam had always thought that keeping the whole truths from the children was irresponsible but who would listen to a man unable to keep a relationship and having zero children on his own.

_Shark finning._

Sam was looking across the water and those two words kept ringing in his ears. Maybe he should just go and ask Erik what all that was about. Maybe the boy hadn't been making deals, maybe he had been breaking them.

That was a viable possibility, right? Right. Certainly.

Erik certainly was mature above his age in things he had no business being matured in, but he wasn't a villain. He was just a very active kid who had the luck of having a jolly barrel for a father. Empty barrel, one might add.

Sam's look wandered towards the rocks where he had the close encounter of the merfolk kind. She was so tiny and toothy and.... childlike. A _child_. A little girl who wanted to keep that pretty thing she'd found.

Sam smiled at the image that immediately popped into his mind, of a small shark-child flapping around in the water with this heavy necklace around her neck, like a pocket-sized queen of her people.

_Shark finning. There aren´t even any....oh._

* * *

Tilda and Bain emerged from the water not far from where Bard and Thranduil had landed. The first thing they heard was swearing in the deep sea dialect.

Thranduil dropped to the ground, taking Bard with him, and began to aggressively rub his ankle.

"I swear something broke in there this time,“ he insisted, "it does'´t feel right!“

"I've had kneecaps for three hours and I already hate both of them,“ Bard said half sadly, half angrily, as if he couldn't decide what he currently felt more.

"What‘'s a neecup?“ Tilda asked quietly.

"I think that‘s the roundish thingy in the middle of the leg,“ Bain replied but wasn't sure himself.

Bard noticed them and his energy visibly grew as he held out his arms towards them. The children quickly shuffled as close to the shore as they could.

Thranduil turned his head after the sound and took a sharp breath when Bard let go of his wrist.

"Just…stay here,“ Bard instructed him briefly, "I’ll be quick.“

He limped as best as he could over to his children, immediately dropping to his knees into the shallow water. Tilda immediately latched himself onto one of his legs, poking the flesh and examining the hated kneecap. She didn't like i tone bit. It smelled like the things she liked to bite.

"Da, is there any point in telling you to be careful?“ Bain said, blinking quickly to push back the tears that weren’t there a second ago.

Bard pulled him closer, realizing how little they hugged during their regular existence. "I’ll be careful, don’t worry, darling. Look after Tilda, don't let her… you know, kill too much. Try to keep her away from the surface.“

Bain nodded and sniffled a little. Tilda fought her way into the hug, pushing the big brother aside and shoving her face into her father‘s chest.

"Send us messages?“ she mumbled into the shirt.

"I will,“ Bard replied in between the kisses he kept almost aggressively planting into her hair, "I promise. You be good, alright?“

"I’ll try,“ Tilda nodded.

It wasn’t always completely under her control and Bard knew that.

Bain glanced at Thranduil, who was sitting at the beach, head tilted to the side as someone who isn’t really part of the conversation but pretends they are to make themselves feel less excluded.

"Be nice to him, da,“ Bain whispered, "he needs it. You have us but if he looses Legolas, he's all alone.“

Bard followed his look, carefully, as if Thranduil could see them. "I know. We’ll get each other through this. We don’t exactly have a choice anyways.“

They parted quickly.

Tilda disappeared into the waves before Bain and when her brother found her, she was trying very hard not to cry. When he tried to touch her shoulder, she snarled, flipped her tail and hurried away into the blue.

Bain knew when was going to hunt and leave the sea red.

That’s what being sad and in transition looked like.


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It has been 84 years...  
> How is everyone doing? Camp NaNoWriMo is over and I am supposed to be writing a chapter for a book that will actually make me a published author, so naturally I have returned to this and I´m gonna try and finish this between work sessions.  
> I hope you´ll enjoy it even after this huge gap!

"Sam? Sam, are you with us?“

Sam Redgrave, very annoyed that he had to move at all, lifted his head from the comfortable pillow made from his folded arms. "What?“ Roman´s wide red face was inches from his own.

„We are going to get that little toothy bitch.“

Sam sighed and rubbed his forehead. Not this again. "I said it before and I´ll say it again, I´m not harpooning a little girl, guys.“

"But she´s getting sloppy! She´s so close to the shore now and when nobody is late on the water, she just tears apart the boats! She cannot get away so quickly in the docks, we can finally get her there!“

It was true that over the last week the incidents had been more frequent. A few maulings and an abundance of destroyed boats. It was also true that she was getting, as Roman had described, sloppy. But having met the creature face to face, Sam felt obliged to emphatize, at least on some level. The change in her behavior had to be caused by something. Catcing her now didn´t sit well with him. They would be taking advantage of a situation. Which would make sense, one would be stupid not to take advantage when catching a predator.

"She´s hurting people! And the business!“

"I don´t care, I´m not doing it,“ he said and got up, tossing couple of coins on the table, "get of my back.“

It had been days since Sam had realized where Erik was probably heading with the whole shark finning idea, and all his attempts to talk about it with the boy ressulted in failure. Erik was practically using Sigrid as a shield and Sam wondered if it was on purpose. She was with him constantly, usually carrying a book. There were things one wouldn´t discuss in front of a foreign visitor, yet alone a young woman who seemed to be enjoying her host´s company. Sam would hate to ruin that for her before he had the full picture. He still hoped the full picture would turn out good. Or somewhat redeemable at least. Sam walked out into an extremely unpleasant weather.

The wind was strong and carried rain, plenty of it. It was pouring down in buckets and the wind dragged it sideways so it was twice as nasty. The sea looked hostile, waves trashing against the pier were much higher than usual. Sam pulled his coat closer and started seriously thinking about moving away. To the desert preferably.

* * *

Bard was a bit ashamed to admit that he had not expected Thranduil to be dealing with the whole situation this well. As if something had snapped inside the deep sea king. This was their seventh day on the shore and over the course of the past six, Thranduil had been walking for hours every day, from one boulder to another, lips tightly pressed into a thin line, feet bruised bloody from the sand and stone, as the skin was still new and sensitive and not hardened by usage.

The progress he made was remarkable. Not only he grew more confident with the stick but he actually walked like a human. Even though his muscles still ached so much he barely slept at night, he was walking and that was important.

Bard had still considerably issues with movement coordination. Used to carrying most of his body weight in the lower half of his form, he kept forgetting how light human legs were and could not understand how come Thranduil did not have the same problem. Unlike him, when Bard fell, he would get angry and the first two days he had even thrown things against the cliff. That is, stones. There wasn´t really anything else to throw. Then he would got frustrated with himself for getting angry. Then Thranduil would grab his arm, usually on the second or third try because his perception of space was, naturally, rather distorted by the blindfold, and hold him until Bard had calmed down.

Food had not really been a problem over the week. Somehow Bard had no idea Thranduil was a carnivore and had been taken aback by the enthusiasm with which Thranduil devoured a bunch of reef fish during their first dinner together. After so many years of knowing each other, one would assume things like this would be a common knowledge between them, yet, they were not.

"Most of us eat meat, Bard. That is why humans are so afraid of us. We glow and we can eat them,“ Thranduil had told him.

They had set up camp in what could barely be called a cave near the spot where they had woken up. It was more of a hole, really, but it was enough for them to hide in, if someone unwelcomed should show up. They had been sleeping on the beach in a respectable distance from each other, although Bard had noted said respectable distance was getting shorter and shorter as the days had been passing.

Thranduil had allowed himself to take the blindfold off after the sun had gone down, and stare into the starry sky or over the horizon, depending on the weather. Bard would never disturb him during this because it almost seemed like a meditation or a prayer. He would instead lie down and plan. Although it was difficult planning anything when one had very little idea of what lied ahead. Sigrid and Legolad could be anywhere, maybe not even here anymore. Maybe they weren´t anywhere at all anymore.

People of the shore had this saying about a needle in a haystack and that pretty much described their situation. Now, at the end of the seventh day, they were finally heading into the haystack.

* * *

"For quite a few days I´ve had the feeling that you would like to speak to me, captain,“ Erik said and Sam found himself unbearably irritated by his tone.

The mayor´s son looked very out of place in the pub and it was way too late at night to be discussing anything but Sam knew that the next day Erik was going to be impossible to catch alone again, so this was probably opportunity worth taking. He put down his pint, swallowed the salty comeback and nodded, acknowledging that the boy had something to say.

But Erik had more than something to say, he had something to show. The headed back to the mayor´s house, in complete silence. Erik was strangely giddy, it was a badly concealed desire to just spill the beans right on the spot. Sam rolled his eyes. Erik´s tendencies to be dramatic seemed to be growing with his age.

He led him down into levels Sam had no idea were even there. Secret basements were never good news so the captain was alert. The redeemable full picture was slipping away with every step they took. It completely disintegrated when they entered a dimly lit room with a giant fishtank filling most of it. Sam knew what was in there before it even showed up.

The young merman was slender and long like a serpent. His tale was pale and glowy, similar to his hair that floated around his expressionless face. He pressed one hand with webbed fingers against the glass, leaning in to take a look at the new guy.

"You...trapped one,“ Sam gasped, lowkey hating himself for stating the obvious.

"We did. Finally,“ Erik said, "and now we can use it. Our playing field has leveled. This is not some random merman, this is exactly the merman we needed.“

He walked over to the glass and the merman´s expression changed, the creature withdrew, his entire body stiffening in a defensive position. Sam was positive that if he met this kind of mermaid underwater, he would prefer drowning over the confrontation with it.

There was a a strange sense of familiarity however, as if Sam had seen the merman before, which was not possible because he would certainly remember seein _any_ merman at all and especially this one.

But Erik looked confident in the matters of the creature´s identity. He pulled out an old leatherbound book, very likely a log from some ship, and handed it to the captain. A page was folded over to mark a particular section and when Sam opened it, an angry face was staring at him from the page, one that remarkably resembled their new prisoner. Things suddenly clicked.

"The deep sea king,“ Erik said with a triumphant smirk, "the resemblance is uncanny, isn´t it.“

So they had his _child_. Sam was staring at the ink sketch in the book and imagined it alive, bigger and toothier than the boy in the fishtank, and angry beyond measure. Then he imagined it times dozen and times dozen again, because the deep sea king had to have a kingdom to rule and that kingdom had to be full of similar bitey angry things. Whatever Erik´s plan was here, it was a bad plan and it was going to end in a massacre.

Sam flipped a few pages and found a paragraph written in shaky panicky italics. At some places the ink was smudged but the text was legible enough for the captain to receive a brief account of an old skirmish between the merfolk and the people of the bay. The winner of said skirmish was unclear but the writing spoke, among other horrible details, of the mutilation the deep sea king had suffered during it, an injury that affected half his face and half his vision. Once he reached the vivid description of bodies floating in red water, Sam slammed the log shut.

"Originally I have been reluctant to bring you into this,“ Erik admitted, "but the adults do tend to see me as just a child and I need someone imposing enough to make them take me seriously. Understandably, my father is out of question.“

_Understandably._ The jolly round man that had fathered this little devil was the opposite of imposing and while Sam had difficulties thinking of himself as imposing, he was still built like an aging oak, while the mayor would be more of a decorative bush.

The problem was, Sam did not want to be brought into this.

"People pay unbelievable money to have a regular shark fin on their plate,“ Erik said, folding his arms across his chest, "imagine how much money would they pay for a fin from a mermaid. _Any_ mermaid. Not just shark people but any kind of merpeople. With that money we would not only get rid of that pest, we would make this place great, we would make it ten times as great as it used to be, the center of trade, more important than the capital. All we need for that is the deal with the O´Marleys and then the plan to click.“

"So we use him as bait for the deep sea tribes,“ Sam concluded in neutral tone, despite everything in him boiling, "what about the shark people?“

He already had a horrible incling of what the answer was going to be but he wanted that horrible child to say it outloud.

Erik, however, seemed to be seeing right through him because he cocked his head to the side and said: "Come on, captain. Her skin is grey, for crying out loud.“

* * *

Bard and Thranduil reached the port around midnight. There was no gate, there were no guards, despite the quality of relationships with the merfolk, the inhabitants of this place were clearly not expecting anyone to come from the sea, unless they had a ship. That was definitely an advantage for two sort of unexpectedly humanized mermen.

The streets were far from empty but in the dark and sort of general drunken haze of the night nobody had even noticed that they did not really belong.

Bard was beginning to stagger. Hours of walking and walking were both making it easier and worse. Thranduil did not wait for him to ask for support, he wrapped his arm around Bard´s waist once he noticed the growing insecurity in his step.

The plan was simple – get into the city under the cover of darkness, find a place to stay until the morning and then start searching. It was a pretty straightforward and simple plan, the real task would start with the last point of it. But when „a place to stay until the morning“ turned into "a quite disgusting narrow alley that would be a good place to get murdered at“ a lot of the initial optimism died out, and there had not been a lot of initial optimism to begin with.

They curled up at the side wall of one of the few houses where the windows were not lit.

"Should we take turns keeping watch?“ Thranduil asked, stacking his improvised cane behind them.

"I suppose,“ Bard yawned, "I am not taking any chances with walkers.“

"I will take the first one then, because you are falling asleep as we speak,“ Thranduil said, shuffling against the bricks to make himself comfortable, "also, I doubt that anyone will want to harm us once they see my face.“

He turned to Bard but the other man was already asleep. To be exact, he had fallen asleep after the word "take“, leaning against Thranduil´s shoulder as if were the most natural thing in the universe. Thranduil briefly thought about the fact that a week ago they had barely spoken to each other and concluded that he liked this much better.


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi guys!  
> I managed to squeeze out another chapter in between work! I hope you are all doing well and enjoying the rest of the summer break.  
> Don´t hesitate to leave a comment about anything, it will be much appreciated because I´m veeery flipping self-conscious about my writing, heh :D I hope you´ll like it! <3

When Bard woke up, it was daylight. Thranduil´s first watch had turned into an all night watch. Or maybe not, because he was fast asleep, leaning on the wall away from Bard, blindfold safely put over his eyes again. At some point during the night he clearly had come to the conclusion that nothing around had been posing enough threat for either of them to stay awake.

Bard carefully shuffled around him, unsure on his feet and peeked into the street. It was quite lively now and a few vendors had already put up their stands. The smell of fried fish reminded Bard of two things – he was hungry and they had no money. Galadriel was reasonably nice but she had no reason to serve them everything on a silver platter. Or maybe the concept of walker money was entirely foreign to her. Underwater they ran on trading of goods, coins and bills were not a thing, although they were aware of their existence on land.

And now those things were very much missing from Bard´s pocket and with them also food from their stomach. Bard would not hesitate to steal, these were people who had killed his wife and most likely had his daughter, but he doubted that either of them was fast enough to actually get away.

He swallowed nothing and returned to Thranduil who was slowly waking up. He groaned and swore in deep sea dialect immediately after he had opened his eyes, because sleeping against a brick wall was very much different and less comfortable than being curled up in warm sand or on a bed of seaweed. His back ached and something cracked when he moved his head.

"You could have woken me up,“ Bard said, helping him up, "you didn´t have to stay up all night because of me.“

"I wanted to enjoy not being blind,“ Thranduil said bitterly and gratefuly leaned on his stick, "there was not much to look at, but better than nothing. I could see a tiny piece of the sky too.“

Bard did not reply because he did not want to let out that wave of sadness, that had suddenly risen inside him.

"Where do we start?“ Thranduil asked and it sounded as a phrase that should be followed by cracking of knuckles.

"Myra always said that the smallest fish sees the biggest ocean,“ Bard said, eyes fixed on a beggar who had just settled across the street in the shade of a slightly worn awning, "so we start with the smallest fish.“

* * *

Sigrid stood at the balcony and stared at the stone on her finger. Erik´s proposal had been unexpected, to put it mildly. Nobody would expect a marriage proposal at one o´clock in the morning, while fallling asleep. Sigrid had been sitting dumbstruck on the bed, in her nightgown, watching in sleepy daze as Erik´s lips had been moving and moving and then suddenly a ring had appeared on her finger.

She was reasonably happy. Apparently walkers had the habit of securing future marriages at the age where one couldn´t even swim to the surface in the ocean. Which was sort of strange, but Sigrid liked Erik and this was a fantastic opportunity to put the past behind them and make something big and important happen. Such as peace.

The ocean glittered in front of her and Sigrid realized that in all that time she had already spent here, she had rarely missed home. Everyhing was new and interesting and there were still new things to discover. Sure, sometimes she had thought of tearing her dress off and jumping head first into the water, because the water was like infinite freedom in comparison with the corset, and she had wondered what Legolas had been doing, but other than that, things and people kept capturing her attention. And Erik made such an effort to show her things and people that every day was thoroughly new. Just the books alone were like a special dry-land kind of magic.

A door slammed behind her. Sigrid jumped. Among other things, the dry land was full of noises and she was not used to those yet.

It was Sam the guard captain. Sigrid smiled and rushed forward to meet him, waving the bling on her finger like a trophy. His response was not what she expected. She knew for a fact that engagements were supposed to be a happy thing that people congratulated each other on, that was the same up here and down there, but the sheer horror that spread on Sam´s face the second he saw the ring hinted that perhaps it was not same up here and down there after all. Maybe up here engagements were supposed to drain all colour from one´s face. Sigrid was up for new experiences.

"Is everything alright?“ she scribbled into her notebook.

Sam looked like that was the most difficult question he had ever been asked.

"Yes,“ he sighed after an unaturally long and heavy silence, "congratulations. This is great!“

Sigrid had seen some forced smiles in her life but this was one looked like Sam wasn´t even trying.

"Don´t lie,“ she wrote in capitals, then deemed it too aggressive, scratched it and wrote it down again in her wobbly cursive.

Sam frowned at the words and pinched the bridge of his nose. His opportunity to answer expired when the door to the balcony opened again ad Erik entered, smiling more brightly than the sun. That changed when he saw Sam´s expression. Sigrid stood aside, more confused than ever before, as she watched the two have their exchange.

"I can´t do this, Erik,“ Sam shook his head, eyes still locked on that stone on her finger, "I will resign my position, if you want, but I want no part of this.“

"Think of our future, captain,“ Erik leaned in with eyes gleaming.

He stepped closer and took Sigrid´s hand, pulling her closer to him and staring into her eyes as lovingly as a teenage boy could manage, while she watched the horror and disgust in Sam´s face grow.

"I´m thinking of a future,“ he said bitterly, "her future.“

He turned on his heel and walked away. Didn´t even close the door. Sigrid listened to the echo of his angry footsteps and wasn´t sure how to feel about this.

Erik cleared his throat, eyes averted into the ground. "I was thinking, we should probably get a second opinion on this.“

He nudged the ring on her finger. "A blessing from your parents, I mean, your father.“

She hesitated before writing down the answer. "Might be difficult.“

"Take your time,“ he smiled, "I´ll do whatever it takes to persuade him this is a good thing. I want him to know how grateful I am that I have met you.“

Sigrid was not in love with Erik. Not yet, but she could see it happen. He was beautiful and smart and really, really sweet, sweeter than cotton candy and cotton candy was _so_ sweet. She liked how he was still a bit shorter than her, so he had to look up, she liked how he smiled at her, as she was the most amazing thing he had ever layed his eyes on, and she liked how eager he was to share his world with her. When he had proposed, she had said yes without thinking about it twice, maybe too quickly and definitely without taking her time to actually run it through her mind properly.

But she had no regrets.

Almost no regrets.

Maybe she had some little tiny regrets but she did not want to let this adventure go.

* * *

They sat down by the water fountain in the main square and ate the few apples Bard had managed to steal while they had been wandering around asking questions that _had_ to seem suspicious to someone, certainly.

Thranduil immediately hid his face in his folded arms. It was sunny and despite the blindfold, his eyes hurt. He needed the shade and he did not want Bard to see the disappointment and hopelesness spreading across his face with every negative answer they had heard. He couldn´t tell if Bard was facing the same feelings. Bard had not let go of his arm the entire time, Bard had always caught him when he had stumbled over someone else´s legs... the last few hours felt like years and Thranduil shuddered when he recalled the cold distance that had been between them that day they had ben talking about their children for the first time in ages.

"I was horrible,“ he sighed into the coarse fabric of his jacket, „do you think this would have happened if we just talked earlier, if... if I wasn´t like _that_?“

"I don´t know,“ Bard said, biting the sour apple.

It tasted disgusting and he could not understand why apples were such a big deal on land, but it probably tasted disgusting because he felt like something was irreversibly dead inside him. He was glad that Thranduil couldn´t see his face and he was glad that he had voiced his feelings first because it was somehow comforting to know they both felt like utter garbage.

Unlike Thranduil, however, Bard knew this would have happened even if they had talked about things. Because Sigrid was like that and she _did_ want to see and exprience everything. And she would drag Legolas along, because they adored each other and they wouldn´t go anywhere without each other.

"We don´t exactly get the award for being the ocean´s greatest parents,“ Bard said after a while, "but no parent can protect his children from everything, I guess.“

"I wish Myra was alive,“ he added then, tossing the half-eaten apple into the crown.

It immediately got kicked elsewhere and small street animals descended on it.

Thranduil did not say anything but the corner of his mouth twitched and Bard knew he was thinking of his own dead wife. Why did it have to be dead wives thay had in common? Dead wives and a border. And now lost children.

"We should go,“ Thranduil said, "sitting and doing nothing makes this more difficult to bear.“

Bard helped him up, attempting an uplifting tone. "Maybe we shouldn´t loose hope. We´ve been here for barely a day. There must be thousands of people in this place, somebody´s bound to know something.“

"Somehow you are making this both better and worse,“ Thranduil smiled and Bard suddenly couldn´t remember if he had ever done that before.

Maybe he had? Bard decided he would like to see him do it more, just so he could avoid these gaps in his memory.

Suddenly someone dashed past them, shoving Thranduil aside so strongly they both almost fell over. Bard cussed in the old language and Thranduil let out a sound that very clearly did not belong on dry land, as he struggled to keep on his feet. To their surprise, the man actually turned back and mumbled an apology. Bard could tell that whoever he was, he was not having a good day.

But it was not just the absolute anguish and anger in the man´s face that caught Bard´s attention. There was a pin on his jacket bearing the coat of arms of what to be the family in charge here. Bard had seen it a dozen times per hour since morning. On very similar jackets, in fact.

This was a guard. Guards were supposed to know about everyone, right? That was far-fetched and Bard knew it, but there was no harm in trying. They had not approached a single one of them yet.

"Excuse me? Sir?“

The guard turned back with a heavy sigh. "Look, I´m sorry, alright, I wasn´t looking where I was going and now I´m going to hell because I shoved a blind man...“

Bard shook his head, although Thranduil mumbled something disapproving under his breath. "That´s not it, just...we are trying to find someone and you could maybe help us.“

"Bard, what are you doing,“ Thranduil whispered nervously. The deep sea mermaids were not big on approaching strangers even when in their own habitat. His instincts had been probably screaming in agon the entire time they had been walking around and, well, approaching strangers.

"A girl, about this tall, dark blonde hair, tanned skin, there´s a scar here and there... and a boy, very light hair, sort of like his,“ Bard pointed to Thranduil´s once again horribly tangled locks.

"He´s very pale,“ Thranduil added quietly,"and has blue eyes. And he´s younger than her. But they might be together.“

 

 

The guard stared at them as if the longest calculation in the world was just happening inside his head. His eyes kept darting between them both as he appeared to be coming to some sort of a realization. He then walked up to Thranduil who clutched his walking stick, ready to turn it into a whole different kind of stick within a second, and his face turned into a strange mixture of relief and utter panic.

When he finally spoke, it was not exactly helpful.

"...oooh fuck.“

 


	10. Chapter 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi guys!   
> This one is a little shorter, but it´s also that kind of a chapter where things happen because you need to get them out of the way... I hope you´ll like it nevertheless!   
> Thank you for the feedback, I really appreciate it, as usually, don´t hesitate to tell me, always happy to read your thoughts <3

At first Sam was positive this was a hallucination caused by the rotten feeling that had settled inside him and threatened to devour his calm sleep for the following thirty years of his life, but then again, hallucinations usually didn´t speak to you.

Or did they? Sam hadn´t hallucinated enough in his life to have the nuances down.

One had the unmistakably greyish undertone in his tanned skin that Sam had seen in Sigrid, and eyes that had the unnerving quality he had seen before as well, up close, when the little mermaid had snatched the lost necklace and disappeared into the pitch black water.

And the other´s features were just a slap in the face. The pale skin and long, equally pale hair, one side of his face ruined and badly obscured by the blindfold... Sam was positive that if he were to pull that piece of fabric away, he would find a blatant copy of the merman Erik had _trapped in a bloody fishtank under his house_.

A shark and the so-called deep sea king.

This was so convenient it was... it was absurd. This would one of those moments where you just stood there, looking at the situation and wanted everything to stop because you were so, so, so tired. Except that now the two men who literally controlled the sea that surrounded Sam´s home were walking on land and the town´s uncrowned prince had both of their children. So, terrified would apply more than tired.

In fact, the second Sam had come to the realization, his first instinct was to just leg it. But by the time he had actually shaken off the initial shock and had been ready to leg it, he had already given himself away and the pair was staring at him not only with confusion but expectations as well. That is, the one that wasn´t blindfolded did. The shark. The one that was blindfolded, the king, just looked vaguely threatening, hinting that the clearly improvised staff had multiple other uses besides supporting a person.

„Have you seen them?“ the shark asked again and Sam realized this was a moment where he would have to make a choice.

* * *

The deep sea sirens had voices. They called to each other with song, although to call it song was perhaps a little far-fetched. Sometimes it was a song, a melody without words, but sometimes it was a shriek, a sound so horrific that the people of land told tales about how it could freeze one´s blood and such.

Sharks didn´t have such means. They had their sense of smell but the human part of their genes quite ruined that. Not every single member of the shark tribe could smell a drop of blood from miles away.

But Tilda could.

At least Sigrid hoped she could, as she stood waist-deep in the sea, watching a reddish swirl dissolve in the water in front of her. She felt a numbness in her legs. Time to get out. She was not sure how long she could really stay in the sea before the legs would turn back into the tail. She stumbled out of the water and plopped down into the warm golden sand.

She lied down and waited.

Her petticoat was perfectly dry again by the time Tilda had appeared with Bain on her tail. The amount of rage that seeped from her face was way too big for a small child like her, yet there it was anyway. She squinted in Sigrid´s direction.

"Sigrid?!“

Her sister quickly gestured at her to hush and come closer. It was still daylight and even though they were technically hidden under the pier, someone could hear them or see them and both of those things were undesirable.

So Tilda shuffled closer and said again, this time just in a very angry whisper: _"Sigrid?!_ “

"You´re alive,“ Bain said, audibly doubting whether it was really so, "you are really alive and you have _legs_! This... this is insane.“

"Have you any idea how much trouble are you in?! How worried everyone was?! You scared us all to death, say good bye to your surface privileges after this!“ Tilda hissed, not sounding at all like a younger sister.

But Sigrid could see the tremble in her lower lip. She slid back into the water and hugged her tightly. Tilda protested at first but then gave in and sniffled into Sigrid´s shoulder, cursing quietly.

Sigrid had to chuckle. She had no idea where Tilda got those words.

Bain´s hug was hesitant, as if he was afraid Sigrid would break if he squeezed her too much.

"This was not cool, Sigrid,“ he said quietly, "don´t ever do that again because this was not cool.“

Sigrid reached for her notebook and started scribbling. It went much faster in her native language. "I´m sorry, guys. Didn´t mean to make you worry. But things happened and it was an opportunity and now I have another opportunity to do something really great. I called you here because of it. Where is da?“

The children exchanged a look. "He went up here. To look for you and Legolas.“

Sigrid frowned. "Why Legolas?“

Bain frowned back. "Is he not with you? They sort of assumed you two were together up here.“

This time the writing was a bit intelligible. "First of all, he´s definitely not with me and second of all, is someone up here with da?“

"Duh, Thranduil,“ Tilda replied, less and less angry and more and more worried, "as if he´s gonna leave his only son to wander the shore alone-“

Bain cut her off. "Wait, so you don´t know where Legolas is?“

Sigrid shook her head, eyes wide with worry. They all looked up at the pier above them, creaking under the steps of dozens. They didn´t need to say anything to know that horrible scenarios were happening in their heads at the moment. Sigrid lost her voice as a price for her legs. They didn´t know what price Legolas had payed, if he had even gotten his legs, where he was, whether he was still alive, not a shred of knowledge about his whereabouts.

Sigrid was worried because despite the land being kind to her, she knew there were walkers who would mean him harm. Bain and Tilda were worried because they assumed all walkers meant him harm.

* * *

"So we trust him?“ Thranduil asked when they had sat down in the closest dining establishment (tavern, it was a tavern). "We just trust this random man whom we have just met.“

"We are not exactly overflowing with options, Thranduil,“ Bard whispered.

He was not particularly excited about it either but the man had recognized them. That much had been pretty apparent. So something was up.

Thranduil moved closer and lowered his voice. "Describe him, please? I hate talking to people I cannot see and I have done plenty of that already.“

Bard cleared his throat. "Umm... Almost as tall as you but not quite, light brown hair, kind of scruffy, has a stubble... greenish eyes, if that´s of any interest to you... or maybe it´s more blue, I don´t know, I wasn´t looking at him that intensely. He looks stressed, though. Aaand he´s getting us both a pint apparently.“

"I do.. not want one,“ Thranduil said sharply at the exact moment the pint landed in front of him.

"You don´t have to drink, it´s just so we look inconspicuous,“ the man assured him, sitting down across from them.

"Do we need to?“ Bard raised his eyebrows and the guard nodded immediately.

"Oh yeah. We do.“

Thranduil took a sip and his face said his opinion of beer for him. Bard didn´t attempt to taste it at all.

The guard did not either. "I don´t want to know how come you two are walking, I don´t even want to know, I would like to be involved this as little as possible but I do feel obliged to say something because I have literally run into you, so...“

"How do you even know?“ Thranduil said. "How are you so sure that we are who you think we are?“

The guard´s response was disturbingly quick. He pointed at Thranduil first. "I saw your face in a captain´s log like an hour ago. And as far as you go,“ he turned to Bard, "I just... figured. The skintone, maybe. And you both carry yourselves as someone who isn´t really used to human legs. It´s somewhat surprising that I could tell right away, since I have never seen a merman walk before.“

Bard and Thranduil exchanged a look, which was in a way possible even with Thranduil´s blindfold. The guard sat across the table with arms crossed on his chest, not downright defensive but keeping an understandable distance.

Eventually he took a very deep breath and cracked his knuckles, one by one. He seemed to by trying very hard to keep a grip on the situation that did not want to be kept grip on. He also appeared to be fascinated by the messages scratched into the wooden desk of the table.

When he finally looked up, after a very long pause, his expression reminded Bard of that one time Bain had made the deep sea guards chase him almost all the way to the surface and had admitted that to his father. Except that this was a man in his forties. At least Bard assumed it was.

"I know where your children are. Both of them,“ he said and withdrew a little, as if expecting to be assaulted or something.

Which still was a viable possibility, to be completely truthful.

"They are alive ,“ he added before either of the mermen could step in, "one is having the time of her life, the other one not so much but he is alive and not hurt as far as I could see.“

Bard had to push Thranduil back into the chair after that sentence, because he immediately sprung to his unsure feet. It took the guard probably a lot of his willpower not to do the same, because Thranduil, even blind and kind of wobbly, was still pretty intimidating.

"Alive and not hurt, Thranduil,“ Bard repeated.

"Easy to say, your child is having the time of her life, apparently,“ he hissed back.

"That is not going to last much longer though,“ the guard said and it was not completely clear whether that was supposed to be comforting or a warning, "because things are going to happen that I know of and that are out of my control and …. I don´t know what to do, alright, and I would be going against literally everyone in this place if I did,... but it´s making me ashamed of my own kind.“

Thranduil didn´t intentionally thought of it. It just popped into his mind, on its own, like a ghost that appears in the window of a sunken ship once in a while. What Galadriel had said. About the land taking his sight.

And about the land taking Bard´s everything.


	11. Chapter 11

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey everybody!  
> After ten thousand years, here comes another short chapter. I have no idea how I will finish it because the school will probably kill me... we´ll see. I´ve been rather demotivated lately... dunno. So until stuff picks up, enjoy!

There was no correct reaction to what they had learned from Sam.

Bard stood ankles deep in the water, clutching the pearly blue scallop in his hand and everything in him wanted to use it. To go home, summon the biggest army, devour this place completely, turn the water red and then leave and never ever look back or trust anyone with legs ever again.

But then he would catch a glimpse of Sam, standing just at the edge of the beach, where the sea turned to foam and washed over his boots, and an immediate confusion would set in, a doubt whether Sam was one of the good ones or whether he was entangled in that disgusting thing too and was supposed to lure them directly into the fishing nets.

Bard could feel Thranduil´s eyes piercing his nape even from under the blindfold. Thranduil had been calling his name again and again and again while he had darted through the streets, vision red with anger. Over the time they had spent with each other Bard had gotten somehow used to the notion that Thranduil was the hotheaded, impulsive and occasionally agressive part of the team.

Apparently Thranduil did too.

"We cannot leave now,“ he said, urgency weighing down his words like a boulder, "if your bring your entire tribe to the surface, you will be swimming right under Erik´s knives.“

„He´s right,“ Sam moved forward and stopped himself immediately, as if he wasn´t completely sure whether he had the right to be part of this conversation.

"I can take you to your children,“ he added after a pause that was either five seconds or five hours, it was really hard to tell.

Also, it wasn´t completely true. Technically speaking, Sam did have access to the mansion and would be able to sneak two men in without significant setbacks. But also, Erik most likely didn´t trust him anymore and that was a significant setback. It was hard to tell how much of this newly born distrust had already spread through the house.

But it made Bard turn back and wade back to the dry land, so it served its purpose.

* * *

The party came out of nowhere. One minute Sigrid was sitting on the swing in the garden, flipping through the book about local heraldry, the next she was being handed a dress in perfect seafoam green, a pair of soft slippers and a set of jewellery so heavy it could without a doubt drown a person.

An adorable older man with equally adorable assistants was waiting at her vanity, ready to create a masterpiece on her head. He looked thrilled at the sight of her hair.

"I know celebrations might be premature,“Erik said, "but I just couldn´t wait!“

Sigrid smiled at him and his excitement but couldn´t bring herself to feel the same. With Legolas missing and their fathers wandering the land, the engagement felt not particularly important. Of course it was important to Erik, Erik was positively bursting with joy over this, which was understandable but still, for the first time since she had set foot on land, Sigrid was glad she was not able to make conversation.

Because she knew her voice would instantly betray her.

Dancing was the official worst and she tried to not hate it so badly. But it hurt. Sigrid was able to look past the pain of walking, even get used to it as time went on, but dancing was a whole new agonizing level. Even the soft plush slippers didn´t help, she barely made it through a single song.

Erik did his best to support her but the pain was just part of her having legs at all. Sigrid started considering valid excuses for being pushed around in a wheelchair for most of the time after they would be married. Many people of the local so-called court were frail anyways. It seemed to be almost fashionable. And once in a while she would just escape to the sea, be free for a day or two and then retuirn to her potentially largely sedentary routine.

Sigrid nodded to herself. Yes, this was possible, she could do that. And thinking about it even distracted her a bit. Not enough, but it was still better than nothing.

She barely noticed when Sam the guard swept in and took her over from Erik, who was immediately taken by an elderly woman with enough feathers in he hairdo to build three new birds.

Sam waited exactly three seconds, that was how long it took for them to drift way from Erik into the crowd, and then went straight to the point.

"Your father is here,“ he whispered and Sigrid would swear her heart stopped.

"Can you disappear for five minutes without him noticing?“ Sam asked, nodding towards Erik.

Something in his face restrained her from pulling out the notebook and inquiring why he wanted to keep it from her fiancé.

She just nodded instead.

Sam steered them towards the door for servants and they were gone from the glitter of the party before Sigrid could summon a question about that too. She held on tight to Sam´s hand as they rushed through the narrow corridor because she had no idea where they were going and neither could she see.

Until a cold gust of wind swept by her bare shoulders, she didn´t even know they were outside. It was already dark. The very next second she found herself buried in hug. Her mouth automatically opened to form the word "da“ but then she remebered she couldn´t speak.

"I really really really want to yell at you right now,“ Bard whispered into her hair and Sigrid felt her eyeliner melting as she teared up.

"We don´t have all night,“ Sam reminded them as gently as he managed at the moment.

Bard reluctantly untangled himself from his daughter. "Right. Sigrid, darling, I am very mad at you but we´re not going to discuss that right now, because you are in danger, Legolas is in danger, we are all in danger. I need you to not get too attached to that boy, no matter what he tells you, what he gives you, what he does, because he is a liar. And no matter how he made it seem, he doesn´t love you.“

Sigrid listened and said nothing, her expression unreadable, while Bard explained as briefly and clearly as possible what was going on. Occasionally she glanced at Thranduil, who was leaning on the wall behind them and was just slightly more than a vague pale shape in the unlit alley.

It was the mention of Legolas trapped in a tank beneath the house that finally stirred her into some kind of reaction. That reaction was suspicion, Bard could clearly see it in her face as she immediately turned to Sam. There was a little bit of accusation thrown in there too and Sam´s step back hinted that he noticed.

"Whatever future they promised you up here, Sigrid, it was a lie, you are a pawn and the means to an end,“ he said quietly.

She wanted to reply but it was too dark to write, so she just fidgeted with her notebook somewhat helplessly and then stuffed in back into her pocket. Her gaze wandered above their heads where the sounds of the ongoig party bounced off the roofs.

They didn´t have much time left.

"If you want to see the boy, we need to hurry,“ Sam reminded them and Thranduil unstuck himself from the wall.

Sigrid followed. Bard didn´t bother telling her to go back to the party, he knew she wouldn´t listen. And he was more than happy to feel her rough palm in his own hand again, just like when she was little.

Sam led them deeper into the structure of the house, into places that were made for bad thing to happen in them. The guards down there already knew and Sam´s position no longer meant anything.

It would be a problem if they weren´t standing between the deep sea king and his child. Thranduil´s knuckles were bloody by the time they reached the room with the fishtank. There wasn´t enough space to wield the staff, for which Bard was somewhat grateful, but there was enough space to punch.

So they punched.

Sigrid stood by with her arms silently crossed over her bejewelled chest and didn´t make the slightest sound.

Legolas was curled up at the bottom of the fishtank. The captivity didn´t suit him. The soft glow typical for the deep sea sirens was dim and depressing, like one of a dying firefly, his scales were thin and flaky and he lost weight.

Upon seeing his father he darted towards the glass as if he had forgotten it was even there. They pressed their hands together through it and Legolas´mouth was moving, but no sound was coming through.

Bard watched Thranduil bite down on the emotions that rushed up his throat and felt like he should do something. It was a reaction triggered by a familiar sight. He remembered that urge, he had felt it every time Myra had looked even remotely sad. So he slipped his hand in Thranduil´s, for the first time not in order to pick him up from the ground or not to lose him in the crowd, but just because it seemed like the correct thing to do. Like providing an anchor.

Sigrid was scribbling into her notebook almost violenty and then slammed it against the glass.

"Everything is wrong,“ the writing said, "we need to leave. Don´t let them near you.“

* * *

At the end of it, there were things, feelings, mostly negative ones, but there wasn´t a plan. The dock was too far away to carry Legolas there without being noticed and on top of that everyone was fairly certain the guards were going to remember their captain assaulting them.

If anything, things were worse than before.

Sigrid let herself be found on the pier, gazing longingly over the horizon and proceeded to give Erik cliché answers, dripping with feelings. Bard watched her leave with him back to the house with arms locked and his fear and worry were greater than before.

They had merely hours to fix this. Once the word about their presence would reach Erik, the only option would be attack. Bard had been still open to that option a few hours back but now when he looked at Thranduil and saw the stars reflecting in his blind eye, his mind echoed with screaming and he smelled blood.

"I am going back to the sea, Bard,“ Thranduil said and it fell hollow and flat onto the sand, "let them set their traps. I can´t wait to be lured into one. They will _beg_ me to let them bring me my son.“

There was no anger in his voice, on the contrary, it almost sounded as if he was trying to convince himself he could unleash the horrors of the deep sea upon the walkers.

Bard tried to brush the shivers off his arm, unsuccessfully. "We will come up with something. We have until dawn at least, we can solve this without bloodshed, Thranduil.“

"We never wanted any bloodshed, Bard, neither did they, so how come our wives our dead, how come I look like this, where did it come from, huh?“ Thranduil spat and got up. "I´m done. They started it, there is no reason to retaliate. They have our children.“

Bard hurried forward and stopped in between him and the sea. "Yes, they do, but even though it sounds horrible, that is not our biggest problem, they want to wipe us out and sell our body parts on the black market! You said it yourself! We cannot do this!“

"That was before I saw my son in a glass box!“ Thranduil screamed.

"And my daughter is engaged to a psychopath!“ Bard screamed back.

They scared a seagull away.

Bard sighed. "Just… let´s take a moment. Please. If we don´t have a plan by the time the sun rises, we go back to the sea and we fight.“

The problem was, the sun rose way too quickly that morning.


	12. Chapter 12

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> NEW CHAPTER. I bet neither of those two people who read saw this coming!  
> Aaaanyways XD I hope y´all are having lovely holidays! Enjoy this... whatever this is, maybe I´ll finally finish it this time.

Thranduil had left. After standing around for a moment more and watching the sunrise, all golden and bloody, he had walked into the ocean with so much confidence it had to be fake. He had snapped the scallop open and that was it. Just clouds of weirdly sparkling sea foam stayed floating on the slightly rippling surface.

Bard had to remind himself that they were two independent adult who didn´t owe each other anything, in order not to feel a little hurt by it. Not because they had disagreed. No decision was the right decision and it all could and would end horribly no matter what they did. But because there was now a tangible empty space next to Bard, noone was grabbing his sleeve when he was pushing through the crowd and Bard was just now realizing how much better it had been when there were two of them. In every aspect.

The first night Bard spent alone on the shore felt a year long. It was windy and stormy and the sea was screaming and trashing like a giant ugly baby. Not hearing another set of lungs work beside him was weird and made him listen to other, creepy and unbelonging sounds around, that kept him awake way longer than he would have liked.

He tried to think of a plan but there were too many things to consider and too few people to count on. In fact, with Thranduil gone, there were none. Bard just kept sinking into despair instead of coming up with anything usable and he hated it.

And he was mad at Thranduil for leaving and than mad at himself for being mad at Thranduil and eventually it became so frustrating he got up and walked out into the wind.

There was no horizon, the sky and the sea were the exactly same charcoal colour. No stars. The lights of the town were awkwardly blinking up on the cliff. Sigrid was behind one of those lights. Bard kept seeing her face hardening into an empty mask of disillusionment at the sight of her best friend imprisoned. It had taken something out of her. She had stopped being a child a long time ago but this was something more, something deeper.

Hope, maybe.

She didn´t run away with a walker just for the kicks. She wanted adventure, yes, romance, definitely, but she had also hoped she would change the world, open the door to something important. Bard knew that for a fact because he knew his children.

They were just like Myra in so many ways.

* * *

There was a single minute during which Thranduil allowed himself to feel like a king again. Having his old body back, his speed, his strength, it made him feel like he could do something.

Anything even.

But a minute is a short time. And this one was just enough for him to infect those closest to him with his rage and let them spread it like a disease. Then he watched his court boil in anger over the loss of their prince and gear up for war, while uncertainity grew inside him like rot.

Several times he even caught himself turning to his right and inhaling as if getting ready to speak, but there was noone on his right and Thranduil always swallowed the question along with his need for confirmation that this was indeed the best choice he could have made.

It was strange to think that Bard´s absence would leave such a gap after mere days. Thranduil was almost annoyed  by it because it seemed to lack any general sense and his thoughts suddenly showed strong tendencies to trail off into very different fields, fields they currently had no business in.

It also allowed Thranduil to discover something rather upsetting about himself – excessively caring about anyone else besides Legolas was making him uncomfortable. No, not uncomofrtable, guilty. Of course he cared about Bard, he had always cared about Bard, in a way most people care about neighbours. You don´t have to necessarily like them, but they are part of your existence and if they got, let´s say, gruesomly murdered by a mob of bigots, you would be upset because it would put a severe dent into your natural environment. The fact that it happened at all would be more upsetting than to whom it had happened.

At least that was how Thranduil had always thought about it. But now it changed and it felt like he was breaking a rule or a promise, neither ever established or given but weirdly still there. He was supposed to focus completely on Legolas, be worried about Legolas and think about how to safe Legolas, first and foremost, yet every time he started to devise a plan, Bard somehow found a way in. There was already a strong defiant voice in Thranduil´s head that refused to leave the shark out of this.

* * *

Bard was slowly and with very little enthusiasm making his way back to the town. He had wandered off in deep thoughts, almost halfway to the spot where they had firstly emerged from the water. Walking was still painful and it kept him grounded in reality.

The bad, horrible, no good reality.

Now he was wading through the shallow water and foam back and suddenly there were clouds of red by his feet and the familiar smell in his nose.

Blood.

Sam the guard was kneeling in the shallow water a little fuirther ahead. His face was bleeding, Bard could see it even from the distance. Beads of blood were falling from the tip of his nose into the water.

"What happened to you?“ Bard said once they were within each other´s earshot.

"Didn´t lay low enough, got punched in the face,“ Sam replied, voice nasal and heavy but virtually indifferent, as if this was but a minor inconvenience.

There was a purple bruise forming above his eye and his lower lip was torn. Bard felt a pinch of shame.

"You got beaten up because you helped us?“

"I got beaten up because I separated from the crowd,“ he replied in a tone that hinted he was done talking about it even if Bard wasn´t.

When finished with scrubbing the dry blood from his palms (it had gotten there in a feeble attempt to stop it from soaking the entire front of his shirt), Sam got up and gave Bard a strangely measuring look.

"Where´s your friend?“ he asked.

Bard turned to the glaring empty spot by his side. "He went home. But he´ll be back and this time he won´t be alone.“

"Let him come,“ Sam nodded, "let him come and bring the wrath of his entire nation along, because I for once can´t wait to see this rotten place drown.“

"You´d most likely drown with it though,“ Bard said, taken aback by the bile in the soldier´s voice.

"I´ll be long gone before you´ll engage in your war,“ Sam chuckled bitterly and started walking towards the pier.

Bard felt like he was expected to follow him, so he did.

"We´ve broken your life here, haven´t we?“ he said quietly.

"Well, if you are so desperate for credit, yes, you two certainly helped,“ Sam nodded, "but I made decisions on my own. I could´ve walked away from it, I didn´t, so now I´m here. Maybe I gained myself some virtue points for the afterlife.“ 

He stopped so abruptly Bard almost bumped into his back.

"I don´t have anything here I wouldn´t be able to just leave anyways,“ Sam said and this time his voice was thoroughly sad.

Bard didn´t know how to deal with that so he gave him a pat on the shoulder which he had immediately deemed a bad idea.

"What are you going to do?“ Sam turned to him.

"I´m not sure,“ Bard admitted, "I haven´t quite figured that out yet. I keep thinking... how did I let this happen. What kind of father that makes me.“

"That is definitely a conversation you should have with _him_ ,“ Sam nodded towards the ocean, "both partnership and parenthood keep avoiding me so I can´t really offer my counsel here.“

The water sloshing around their ankles was somehow much louder than usual, as they stood there together in brief silence.

Once the moment stretched to its breaking point, Sam shook his head and sighed, clearly giving up.

"Look, I´ll help you get your kids out of here,“ he said, "or, to be exact, I´ll do my best to help you get your kids out of here. But my power has limits. Don´t expect miracles just because you have a single human on your side.“

"I´ve never expected a miracle in my life,“ Bard assured him, supressing an urge to perform a very awkward hug, "so I certainly won´t start now.“

* * *

"Are you sure about this, Your Majesty?“

Thranduil´s court rarely questioned its king´s decisions but this was controversial, excessive and potentially dangerous.

Thranduil was aware of all of those things. But he failed to see other opportunity to demonstrate the full power of the deep sea kingdom than now, in the midst of a literal kidnapping of the crown prince.

"I am not but it must be done,“ he said, "we shall awaken the old king.“

Longevity was one of the traits own to the deep sea nations everywhere. Though now certainly diluted by mingling with other species, it still meant they could live very long and sometimes very difficult lives, especially since the waters more often than not boiled with war.

The straw that broke the camel´s, in this case Thranduil´s father´s back, was the death of the queen mother. King Oropher, long plagued by the ongoing conflicts within and out of the sea, had decided back then that he could no longer bear any of it, that he was done.

Later many spoke ill of him and his decision to leave both the nation and his barely grown son, a boy who had just lost his mother, in order to go into a voluntary exile and grieve in peace. Thranduil himself had had troubles forgiving him and when he finally had done so, it bordered on forgetting more than forgiving.

Though rarely spoken off, it was common knowledge among their people that the old king has laid himself to sleep in the trench, accompanied by just a handful of his most loyal courtiers. A few of them had passed away in their sleep over the course of almost three decades, and their bodies were lifted out of the trench and buried according to customs.

Thranduil had never said it out loud but he dreaded waking up one day with a hollow feeling in his chest and knowing that his father was no longer among the living as well. Though Oropher could live for potential centuries, his will to do so was gone.

But right now Thranduil didn´t need his zest for life, right now he needed his power. He needed him to be a monstrous apparition at the front of the army and make his way into walker nightmares. These people of the shore had never seen the old king. Oropher had not risen to the surface in more than half a century. Thranduil might have lost the moment of surprise, but he still had the surprise itself.

They descended into the trench in silence. Thranduil felt a strange mix of excitement and anxiety, and a nibbling question at the back of his mind - what would Bard have to say about this. It bothered him that he was almost sure Bard wouldn´t approve. It bothered him even more that from it he concluded it probably wasn´t the greatest decision.

The trench was dark, sunlight came here to die of old age after it traveled through the deeps. The faint glow marking the resting spot of the king seemed like a hallucination at first to those who knew nothing of his exile.

Thranduil gestured at his companions to stay back. He couldn´t predict what his father´s reaction upon being woke up quite rudely and asked to join a war would be. Also he wanted to take that moment for himself and himself only. No matter how brief it would be before all hell would break loose.

He kept going deeper into the trench, places almost too dark even for him. The glow grew with every inch, eventually revealing a coiled mass of Oropher´s body, heaving with slow breath and otherwise unmoving. He was bigger than Thranduil, resembling a serpent more than a merman, with translucent silvery skin on his tail as well as his upper body. His features were pointier, sharper than his son´s Thranduil had inherited the strong brow and softer jaw of his late mother, but his eyes were Oropher´s eyes through and through.

Or they used to be.

"Father,“ Thranduil whispered, reaching to touch a cluster of glistening scales on Oropher´s shoulder.

His father´s slumber was more shallow than he had presumed. Oropher´s body immediately uncoiled like a startled snake, raising clouds of sand from the ocean floor. His eyes were white, there was no outline of the irises or anything else and for a moment Thranduil experienced a wave of pure horror thinking Oropher couldn´t see him and would never see him again.

But he could. And he did.

* * *

When she returned to her chambers from a slightly awkward dinner with Erik and his father, Sigrid found a smooth pebble with a piece of wet paper wrapped and tied around it in a flower basket. Erik sent her flower baskets daily.

And Sam knew about it. He had slid past the messenger boy from the flower shop earlier and slipped the pebble between the array of sweetly smelling selection of various kinds of roses.

There was hasty scribble on it in Bard´s handwriting.

"Find out how they got him in. Leave the answer under the balcony. Will come tomorrow.“

Sigrid felt immense relief and worry at the same time, as she held the damp message in her hand. Her father was still here and that was both reassuring and stressful. She would have almost preferred blissful ignorance over knowing she was walking around in a trap that was about to slam shut.

She had a day. That was plenty of time.

Sigrid took a deep breath, locked her bedroom door, then sat crosslegged on the covers, the pebble and the paper laid out in front of her.

This was easy.

She could definitely do it.

Plenty of time.


	13. Chapter 13

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Happy New Year everyone!!!   
> Here comes another chapter. I hope to get stuff boiling properly in the next one, hehehe. Enjoy and lemme know what you think! :3

Bain was tired. And feeling weirdly powerful because people had been really listening to him and doing what he told them. At the same time, however, not being questioned at all was making him overthink every single decision he made.

Tilda did her best to be helpful but he could see how difficult this was for her. She pushed everything deep down and tried her hardest to not add to the pile of problems that had befallen their family by going out to the sea and vent her transition by trying to eat unsuspecting fishermen. Bain could see how much she wanted though and he was almost tempted to give her his blessing and later watch her come home with blood stained mouth and possibly someone´s limb.

She also repeatedly demanded a job. She wanted to physically contribute to her father´s and sister´s rescue. Unfortunately there weren´t exactly heaps of things a mermaid her age could do and not die. But Tilda was persistent and Bain was tired, so he gave up.

"Fine,“ he said, pinching the bridge of his nose so hard it threatened to break, „you can join the scouting party. But do not separate from them, do not swim too close to the shore and keep yourself in the middle of the group. Understood?“

"Totally!“ Tilda called as she was already swimming away at an alarming speed to catch up with the scouts.

She wasn´t even out of his sight yet and Bain started to suspect that this was his worst idea yet. But honestly, what did everyone expect from him? He was fifteen. He was doing his best.

The deep sea nation was on a war path. A lilac-colored messenger with translucent fins appeared quietly in the midst of the oncoming storm that currently was the shark tribe and relayed a message to Bain. Thranduil wanted to meet.

Bain had no idea how one went about meeting a what was technically royalty. So he had three impressive-looking warriors called to accompany him because it felt like he was supposed to do that. To create an illusion of having his shit together.

They had to go down, even though Thranduil met them halfway. Bain was glad he took his men with him, because the deep sea king showed up not only with a whole platoon of his creepy jellyfish guards, but also with a huge ghostly merman floating quietly by his side and observing everything with disturbing white eyes that appeared blind.

"We are almost ready,“ Thranduil said, "we can set out within a day´s time.“

"As you wish,“ Bain nodded even though his own tribe was far from prepared, at least from his point of view, "but let the sharks lead the way. We live closer to the surface, let us be the vanguard.“

It seemed like the correct thing to say and Bain felt like a leader saying it. The men by his side hummed in didn´t appear to have anything against that.

Thranduil exchanged looks with the unsettling merman by his side. Bain squinted at them, unsure whether he was seeing a resemblance or just falling victim to a trick of the scarce light. After some unseen expression of agreement, Thranduil turned back and nodded too.

"Be the vanguard then. We will follow you once the twillight falls.“

The plan was clear, they didn´t even have to talk about it. Destroy the port, sink everything, shred even the smallest barge, tear down the pier, wreak as much havoc as possible withing their limited action radius. Paralyze their trade, cut of their escape route. Then they would bring on the wave.

Bain was sceptical about that part inparticular, mostly because the last time merfolk had brought a wave onto the shore had occured several hundred years ago. And arguably there were people up there that didn´t deserve to have their lives swept  away by a mass of  water.

But Thranduil seemed confident. There was a strange dark glint in his eyes and the quiet hovering spectre next to him could hardly be considered anything but a threat. Once he acknowledged the merman´s eyes seeping into him, he started to feel quite uncomfortable. He was glad when the meeting was over, everyone knew or at least pretended they knew what was their part to play in the upcoming war.

_War._ That still left a bitter aftertaste on his tongue.

Oropher silently watched the sharks swim away and then turned to Thranduil: "Is that his child?“

Thranduil nodded, thoughts suddenly running wild. "Bain, his middle child. The only boy.“

"A strong young man. Resilient. Hardened by life already,“ Oropher said with a strange mixture of admirations and sadness in his voice.

"I suppose that is what losing a mother will do to you,“ Thranduil replied absentmindedly.

His father turned on his tail and glided through the water, the leftover light bouncing off his angles. There was aan area between the not-so-deeps and the actual deeps where Oropher was practically invisible. When he spoke, it was like a disembodied voice was speaking to Thranduil from everywhere in the weird unpleasant greyish darkness.

"I suppose. It is both the most terrible and great because it breeds strong people. Look what has become of you. A king.“

It wasn´t my mother´s departure that made me like this, Thranduil thought but didn´t say anything outloud. He didn´t want to delve into that right now.

"You have spoken very fondly of this boy´s father,“ Oropher said as they were entering their territory.

Nothing followed, he just left it hanging there, waiting for Thranduil to react.

Thranduil did. In a rather snappy matter.

"Of course I have. Bard is a good man. And we have both been stupid. I feel responsible for all those years we could´ve spent... differently.“

He couldn´t see how Oropher looked at him because he sped up and descended into the dark before his father could ask him to elaborate on that.

Thranduil didn´t want to elaborate on that.

Not now.

* * *

Loitering under Sigrid´s balcony in extended periods of time was most likely the worst idea in their current situation but Bard would rather risk it than have Sigrid endanger herself by delivering the message anywhere in a more complicated manner than a drop of a stone. So he understandably freaked out a little when she showed up in person.

"Ooooh no, no, you´re not supposed to be here,“ he said immediately once he heard her skirts rustle on the grass, "you are so not supposed to be here, Sigrid, we need him to trust you a little longer!“

Sigrid made a face and quickly scribbled something into her already quite battered notebook.

"CALM DOWN, DAD,“ it said, in all caps.

Sam patted him on the shoulder to reinforce the idea and pulled down the scarf that he had been wearing over his face for most of the day to avoid being punched or arrested. People weren´t very smart around here.

"If I was to write down everything I know, I´d have to drop you a book,“ Sigrid continued.

Her handwriting had become loose and at some points barely legible, as she tried to write everything down as fast as possible, using her knee as a support, with pale gray skirt spilled around her in the grass.

"That was disturbingly easy,“ Sam whispered to Bard while she scribbled, "either the boy is guarded by morons or this is a trap.“

"She still has Erik´s trust, I´m confident,“ Bard said.

And if it was a trap, then somebody was going to die. Sigrid exhaled and stretched her fingers, handing the notebook to them.

"All the best men are looking for you, L. Is guarded by leftovers. They are lazy, were asleep when I went down there. Old and quite fat, to be honest. Will not put up a fight. There is a metal coffin they used to get L. inside. The guards didn´t know how the tank opens. Will have to smash it. Still don´t know how to get L. into the sea and not get caught.“

A metal cofffin filled with a fully grown merman truly wasn´t something that could be transported incospicuously, but it still offered half a solution. Bard was fine with a coffin. They could certainly do with a coffin.

"We´ll do it tomorrow early morning,“ he said and then reached for his daughter and kissed her forehead. "Just hold on a little longer.“

Sigrid ripped out the pages of her notebook, briefly hugged him and scuttled away.

Seconds later they saw a light appear in her window – hopefully just a maid that had come in to prep the bed or bring in another on of those ridiculous flower baskets. What a waste of flowers, Sam thought.

Then he noticed Bard, staring at his daughter´s handwriting with wet eyes.

"If something goes wrong and I loose either of them, there will be no recovering,“ he said and Sam could hear the breaking point in his voice, "I will have endagered my younger children for nothing, ruined your life for nothing... and Thranduil will hate me forever.“

Before Sam could say anything, Bard shoved the papers behind his shirt and headed down towards the sea. Sam was glad because he would have only reminded him that it was his daughter that had decided to go on an adventure in the first place, and blaming his child for all of this was definitely not the best strategy.

Also, he kept thinking there had to be one more person between Sigrid and the land. Sam knew about sea witches, everybody knew about sea witches, in the past even humans had made deals with them and it mostly ended badly. There had to be a witch that had shamelessly tricked a child into giving up her voice. Sam shuddered at the thought and hurried after Bard.

* * *

Fingers, flesh from the forearms and calves and two entire limbs were lost while the men were trying to capture the tiny mermaid. For a second they had actual doubt about whether they truly had the upper hand here. That was a first for the O´Marleys. They were so used to sharks giving up without any bigger fight they forgot there was a part that was human in these creatures.

Although it was difficult to tell at first sight. The girl had grey skin ahd her eyes were black like obsidians. Pieces of flesh and skin stuck in her teeth and with lips stained viscous red, she looked like a pocket sized demon.

"Let´s hope their sense of community is as strong as this little bitch´s teeth,“ the older O´Marley said, bruishing off a splinter, while men around him clutched the bleeding stumps of their appendages and such.

"Let´s head to the ship and prepare for cargo!“ he ordered. "Every piece of space you can. The bounty shall be plentiful tomorrow.“

Tilda snapped at his ankle but missed.


	14. Chapter 14

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hellooo!   
> Here comes another chapter and sh*t´s getting graphic, heh. Big thanks to everyone who´s reading and commenting, it always cheers me up and motivates me to write more! So don´t hesitate to let me know what you´re thinking. Or just tell me what the weather is like where you currently are, I´m down for whatever :P.

"Don´t kill it yet,“ Erik said upon being shown the little mermaid splashing around in a dark metal box.

He hadn´t seen much of her, only two inky eyes that very much expressed her desire to eat his face off.

"Don´t cut her either, I need to make sure she lures them here first,“ he added when he noticed someone vigorously sharpening a knife in a corner.

"Then you have to promise me, she will still be here after we´re done. A youngling will sell well as a house pet,“ the older O´Marley said.

Erik had realised some time ago he didn´t necessarily enjoy being in the same room as the older O´Marley. The younger one was a sort of dull, unthreatening presence, but the older one gave him the creeps and one look at him always reminded Erik that he was, in fact, a child. The boy had to try twice as hard to maintain the air of authority while strongly suspecting O´Marleys were giving in to his whims just for the fun of it and the second they would stop liking what Erik had to say, they would walk.

"Fine, after we´re done you can do whatever you want with her,“ he said and the creature hissed at him from under the lid.

Erik instinctively took a step back and the men chuckled.

* * *

Bain caught the scent before anyone else and his heart stopped. Tilda´s blood, stretched like a red ribbon all the way from the harbor. He almost started crying right on the spot, out of exhaustion and generally being overwhelmed by existence at the moment. People around him saw him stiffen and recognized instantly that something went wrong. Seconds later they smelled it too.

"We are ready, Bain. We head out right now,“ someone on his right said and a rough hand softly squeezed his shoulder in a comforting gesture.

Black spots floated in front of Bain´s eyes. He nodded, unsure about what he was responding to. Tilda was hurt, Tilda was possibly _dead_. Suddenly everything came crushing down on him with all its weight.

"Alert Thranduil,“ Bain heard himself say, "we strike immediately.“

His voice was firm but it was fake. Everything he did was fake, because he was fifteen and he was not supposed to do this.

He didn´t want to do this. He was doing it wrong.

Legion after legion slithered out of the deep sea waters, dark pointy shadows of sharks among them. Under any other circumstances it would be an incredible sight longed for by many for ages, the deep sea sirens and the shark tribe together.

Bain kept himself in the front, next to Thranduil, hoping some of the war spirit or whatever would rub off on him. Thranduil´s face was blank like an unpainted theatre mask and his entire body tense from trying to keep himself from exploding with contradicting emotions.

He was glad Bain chose to be beside him. He told himself it was because that way he could make sure at least one of Bard´s children was save, but in reality it was because he really wanted Bard to be there instead, a feeling that was getting stronger with every flip of the tail. When he glanced and Bain really quickly, he could pretend Bard was, in fact, there and it made him feel better. Stronger.

Oropher glided quietly under them all, long and ghostly, with a tingling sensation that started in his fins and fingers and was slowly creeping through him. A mixture of fear, excitement and the feeling of impending doom.

The sounds of the harbor were unexpectedly lively, even when muffled by the mass of water separating them from the oncoming army. Orange flashes of fire and the thumping of dozens of feet hinted something big happening. The walkers would have noticed an abundance of enlongated silhouettes stirring the water under their feet if they payed the littlest of attentions to the sea.

But they weren´t.

The scouts returned quickly, relaying everything in as much detail as they could. The number of ships, how many of them were full, how many out on the open sea. And while Bain´s expression was sinking into worry with every word, Thranduil visible grew more and more content in a rather unsettling manner.

"Good,“ he said sharply, "I want them to see.“

* * *

The second he heard the wood crack, Sam knew it was their „now or never moment“. A fat merchant barge suddenly dropped, then the one next to it and another, and judging from the screaming that was coming from the other side of the harbor, the same thing was happening there. People were dropping their business right and left and running down to the pier. Sam made sure nobody was looking at him and bolted in the opposite direction, grabbing Bard by the hand on the way.

"It´s too soon,“ Bard whispered as they rushed through the streets, Sam´s hand wrapped around his wrist like a locked cuff, "it´s too soon, something must´ve happened...“

"Shut up and run, we don´t have all day for this!“ Sam hissed back at him.

Sigrid was waiting for them under her balcony, cloaked and nervously rocking on her unbelonging, hurting feet. She had seen the first ship go down from her balcony and recognized the opportunity, hoping they would too.

When Bard saw her, he smiled and it felt strange, like his face was almost forgetting how to do that.

Scarves hiding their faces, they slipped in through the side door. Sigrid smoothed her hair and pulled out her notepad, ready to mildly illegibly flirt her way into Legolas´cell, for the lack of a better word, the men stayed behind her, ready to get their noses broken again.

Bard suddenly felt very unsteady on his feet. Now when the echo of his heartbeat wasn´t deafening anymore, it was replaced by the sound of wood cracking and breaking, the sound of water being sucked in by the emptiness behind the cracks, the sound of a dying ship.

It should have been associated with victory, but it wasn´t.

In front of Bard Sam physically took a step back, staring at the empty guarding post by the door.

"There´s nobody down here... seriously?“

"Too convenient,“ Sigrid wrote and he nodded. "Way too convenient.“

"I can stand guard,“ Bard said quickly, "if someone comes, I´ll knock. Sigrid can explain why she´s in there but the two of us cannot.“

"There is nowhere to hide,“ Sigrid protested in hasty cursive, nodding towards Sam but Bard was already shaking his head.

"That might be true but at least he used to work here. I have literally no business being anywhere near this place and you can hardly carry Legolas on your own, so please, hurry. Preferably noone has to hide anywhere!“

"Your dad is actually right on this one,“ Sam agreed quietly while trying to open the lock with a hairpin he had stolen from Sigrid´s hair a while ago.

It took him the longest thirty seconds in the world and both Bard and Sigrid wondered if this was a normal skill for a member of the security system to have because it seemed really out of place. Then they had to stop wondering because the lock popped open.

"Da, if someone does show up, knock and run,“ Sigrid wrote in tiny letters that sounded like whispers, "I know you´re going to protest now, but seriously, you have to.“

Bard stared at the letters and they were melting in front of his eyes.

Then an explosion shook the entire town and a pillar of smoke suddenly towered over the harbor.

"We really are at war now, huh,“ Sam said with an expression that m,ade him look ten years older.

"Are Bain and Tilda there?!“ Sigrid wrote in her agressive caps and the notepad hit Bard´s nose when she shoved it in his face.

"I don´t know,“ he whispered with eyes turned to the smoke.

"Is _he_ in there?“ Sam asked quietly.

There was no reply. Sigrid grabbed Bard by the shoulders and shoved him in the direction of the mayhem.

"Go,“ she mouthed.

"We can do this,“ Sam nodded, "go check on your kids... or him or whoever you need. We´re fine, really.“

"Be careful,“ Bard ordered, aiming at Sigrid in particular.

It was a solid dad voice he used in that moment and was ridiculously proud of it. Almost as if he was getting a grip of the situation.

Almost.

* * *

Thranduil watched the sharks tear the ships apart in quiet awe. He had almost forgotten how powerful they were. The deep sea sirens took it upon them to drag the wreck and anyone who came down with them into the depths.

Then something exploded and they had to retreat. The fire was too bright.

Somewhere deep, deep in Thranduil´s mind a trauma was trying to claw its way to the surface. All of a sudden he was overly conscious of that one side of his face.

He made his way through the soldiers dragging down rubble and bodies, trying to find a clearing where he could see what was going on up there. To see if Bard was up there. If Sam the guard or any of the children were up there. Or if they were just mindlessly tearing down a harbor.

Even if it were just that, he wouldn´t give it a second thought. They still had his son.

Bain came out of nowhere, out of breath and having clearly already sustained some minor injuries. His eyes, however, were on fire. The spirit of it all had already clung to him like salt. It was disturbing.

"They have Tilda. They used her blood to lure us in. We swam right into a trap and dragged you with us.“

"I wouldn´t worry about that since we are winning so far,“ Thranduil said but his heart did skip a beat and not in the good way.

"And I don´t think they just want to kill us either. They have nets,“ Bain added and this time Thranduil´s heart skipped two beats.

The timing of the first shark body descending into the water in a cloud of blood was almost impeccable.

Their dorsal fin was missing.

Their caudal fins were missing.

Their pelvic fins were missing.

And then came another and another and another, all mutilated, all engulfed in red, all quickly bleeding to death in their own natural habitat.

Just like all those years ago, the ocean suddenly turned crimson and quiet.


	15. Chapter 15

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello!   
> Here comes another chapter! It's Sigrid and Legolas focused and posted through my phone, so there might be typos. Enjoy a hit me up in the comments with anything!

Sigrid felt the cold stone under her cheek as the man pressed her against it. With the corner of her eye she could see Sam, collapsed within her reach, with a red stripe of drying blood over the right side of his face. He was unconsious. Being slammed into a wall does that to a person.

She wasn´t trying to retrace their steps and find out where they had gone wrong, there was no point in that. Maybe they had been followed. Maybe she had been followed for entire days now. Maybe Erik had known ever since she had seen his true colours.

But maybes held no value now. This was bad and she could see no way out of this. Even if she could scream nobody would come. And Sam was out cold, they made sure of that.

Sigrid could fight jut as well as any other girl, kick and scratch and bite but she was arguably way better at it in the water. Without a dress. She wished she could at least scream profanities at them, as they took her away. Legolas was in the coffin, quiet, unmoving, one pale webbed hand hanging over the rim. Sigrid shot him a look as they dragged her by. She knew he wasn´t dead and couldn´t decide if him pretending to be was a good idea or not. They could let him be or they could shoot him in the head to make sure. And even if the first option was the more favourable one, Sigrid wasn´t sure how long could deep sea sirens actually go without diving back in.There were limits to all the merfolk.They could be pushed but being left in a cellar with very little water was way past pushing.

So Sigrid was almost relieved when the remaining two men lifted the coffin with a grunt and some cursing and marched just behind the rest. They were heading to the harbor, Sigrid could tell. She hadn´t been walking much around the town on her own, but the smell of sea was heavier and heavier in the air, cut with something metallic and unbelonging.

It took her a while to put to and two together, she was distracted by the pain in various parts of her body as the men shoved her and dragged her, but once she realized, it was pretty obvious.

Blood.

Enough of it to stink up the air all the way over here. There was smoke too, but the shark in Sigrid latched onto the blood. She couldn´t make out any particular scent belonging to a particular person, it was all blurred together in a disgusting mixture of pain and fear.

They reached the harbor but didn´t immediately head towards the chaos. Sigrid caught merely a glimpse of the boiling red sea, couldn´t make out anything more before being yanked away and towards the sandy strip where the beach begun.There as a boat bobing on the angry water, two men standing beside it.

"Boss, he´s dead.Why are we bothering with a dead bloody fish? His fins ain´t worth jack, are they?“

„Shut up and march!“

"He´s not even in the water though? Boss, I´m telling ya, he´s dead!“

"Then drop him and move!“ one of the men by the boat roared.

He was not tall but due to his bulk appeared large, like a boulder walking. When they came closer, Sigrid could hear the unfitting leather coat creaking as the stitches struggled with the amount of man. She flinched at the heavy sound of the coffing being dropped. Legolas didn´t make a sound as his body sprawled on the sand and rocks and broken shells.The sight of him made her inside tighten.Up to this point she was leaning towards the option of him pretending, but now, seeing him limp like an actual dead fish, she was shaken. Her eyes were on the long pale shape of his body until it disappeared in smoke.

Being so close to the ocean made her feel more comfortable, stronger. Were she not stuck between two men, Sigrid would throw herself overboard.Instead she just stared into the water, silent because she had to and wanted to. Even if she could speak, she wouldn´t.

There were shapes in the water, ghostly pale sirens and dark shadows of sharks, almost at the tip of her fingertips. She watched them glide underneath the boat and a small smile creped on her face. She tried her best to make it mischievous and toothy in case any of the men were watching her. She wanted to look like she knew things.

The two men in leather who came with the boat navigated them surprisingly smoothly through the rising chaos. Their trajectory was a reversed C, from their relatively quiet starting point to a ship that alone remained seemingly in perfect condition, as if its wood was impenetrable, unbreakable, different. But as Sigrid watched, while the boat was closing in, she realized it as merely because the ship wasn´t fighting. She heard screaming, high pitched and sharp, like cutlery scratching a porcelain plate, from the other side of the ship, where she couldn´t see. Those were shark screams.

Then the first mutilated body dropped in front of their boat, splashing ssalty water and blood into their faces.

The shark caught Sigrid´s eyes as he sunk. She stared into his vaguely familiar face as it vanished from her sight and suddenly understood way too many things. A sound came from inside her, almost tearing her vocal cords to shreds, making her on ears ring and filling her with much needed rage.

* * *

_The cavern was blacker than anything Sigrid had ever seen. It didn´t belong here. Not the cavern itself but whetever was inside of it. There was no shape, no form, only presence._

_Sigrid didn´t know much about sea witches. She had never cared for them before because she had never needed the services of one. She knew they existed, she knew they were fairly powerful, but what she asked was no small thing.That´s why she swam here, to a place of uncertain position, to a shapeless, faceless entity that was more a dark rumour than anything else._

_She tried to focus on the fact that she had a plan, that this wasn´t a child´s whim, an act of rebellion or anything of the sort.This was an actual plan to make things better._

_Something doable, something that could work. A serious matter._

_However, when she whispered her wish into the nothing inside the cavern, she did feel rather silly._

_No answer came at first, so she turned away. Swam and swam and then swam no more, awoken from a sleep she hadn´t seen coming by a terrible thundering voice echoing through her mind so lively and close it felt like someone had just screamed into her ear. There were words but she had forgotten them almost immediately._

_Until you bath in the blood of your brethren._

It rang through Sigrid´s mind her way off the boat, as clear as the very first time as she dragged both them men holding her into the crimson water.

The fabric of her dress exploded at several places as her body began to change shape. She had gone under a damsel in distress and emerged a shark, shreds of her bodice hanging over her chest and human skin stuck in her teeth.

There was something underwater, something ahead, that prompted her to bite.

Tilda´s scent, so raw it could only come from blood.

Somebody was hurting her little sister.

Sigrid wasn´t a vicious creature but the second she smelled it, her mind painted a picture of the night of the storm, when she and Legolas had swam to the wreckage.

Only this time they weren´t bringing people to safety, this time they were dragging them down.

Make things better. Yeah, sure.

* * *

Legolas was overwhelmed by the sounds and smells and pretty much everything. All of his energy went into focusing on keeping his eyes closed and breath shallow and steady, yet still being ready to bite the second someone other than Sigrid would attempt to check his pulse.

He could hear his own heartbeat, so terribly loud the others had to hear it too. His body was twisted in an uncomfortable position, the coffin too small for his entire length, but he didn´t move a muscle, letting everything cramp and ache, until he could no longer hear the boat on the ocean. The smoke stung his eyes and the smell of death made his nutrition deprived insides twist.

It was difficult to breath and difficult was becoming impossible more and more every second.The sand clung to Legolas´skin like little shards of glass. The ocean licked the fingertips of his left hand but he could barely feel it, as his own weight was cutting off his circulation.His tail was quickly drying out, now when even the little water he had before had been spilled. Despite his muddled mind, overcome with impressions now when he was out of the sense-suffocating tank, Legolas could pretty clearly tell that if he wasn´t going to move, he was going to pass out eventually and then most likely die here.

So he decided to do the siren thing, in hopes it would draw the other sirens to him, even though they clearly had different worries at the moment. He sang.

His voice carried over the waves and through them, into the depths and into the sky, over the cliff and into every house on it, into the ears of every child and every elder that had maybe heard asimilar song once, when they were just an infant and thought it had been a dream.

It took the last of Legolas´energy and as the song died out, his vision began to fade, He wasn´t entirely certain whether the large pale shape that rose from the shallows was truly there.

It reached for him with a spider-like hand the second the boy´s mind became shrouded in darkness.


	16. Chapter 16

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Lol yeah, so... I'm late, but better late than never, I guess. Thank you for the comments, always makes my day, don't hesitate to keep them coming :P !  
> I hope you are enjoying this absolute shitstorm, there is more coming! Cheers!

Bard more fell than jumped into the red water. Briefly deprived of both hearing and vision, he blindly searched for something he could crack the scallop open. When Thranduil had departed, they had discovered that the scallops were a sort of a seal to their contracts with Galadriel – break the scallop, break the contract. It was a definitive device, one way ticket back home.

With one child still on the dry land, Bard hated to do that, but with two children and Thranduil in the boiling bloody sea, he had to.

Something very heavy hit him in the shoulder and pushed him deeper, almost knocking the scallop out of his hand. Bard abruptly came to a disturbing realization – there was a possibility of him drowning. Another heavy shape came crashing down, dragging massive ribbons of blood behind it, and this time the impact flung him to the right and deeper into the sea. Bard lost track of which way was up. Precious seconds of the very limited time a walker could spend under water ticked away. He dug his nails under the rim of the scallop, cutting himself on all the fingers involved.

A moment later he felt like his body exploded. Like it had been confined to a box for weeks and now it finally got out. It… hurt? Bard couldn’t decide. It wasn’t comparable to anything he had ever felt before.

Feeling the oxygen once again circulating in his systems, he allowed himself to pretend that he had a grip on the situation, just for a few seconds. Just to take a single proper breath. He closed his eyes, but that only made the stench of blood worse.

Still, it wasn’t that what made him open his eyes again. It was Thranduil and his entire enormous form wrapping itself around Bard’s.

* * *

The water was pulsing with the sounds of battle but it was still the most soothing thing Legolas had experienced ina very long while. Pressed against a steady heartbeat in an armored chest he didn’t recognize, he was slowly realizing how much he really needed the ocean. How suffocating and disgusting the tank really was.

An arm was gently yet firmly holding him in place as they plummeted through the chaos, while the deep sea soldiers started flinging themselves out of the water and coming back with a screaming walker in their deadly embrace. The screaming didn’t last long. Legolas watched the life escape from their bodies in a series of bubbles through his own eyelashes and felt half asleep, as if in a nightmare.

Some of the merpeople didn’t come back down. Legolas tried to think of why but couldn’t, his mind still felt like trapped isnide a clam.

This couldn’t be real life.

They stopped in a spot that seemed somewhat shielded from the surrounding chaos. Legolas felt the grip loosen and reluctantly freed himself from the arms that carried him here to finally take a look at the whole person.

A bigger and somehow more translucent version of his father was floating in front of him, regarding him with careful milky eyes from behind a cloud of pale hair. Beads of light ran along his entire form. His face was sharper than Thrnaduil's but seemed to perpetually smile a gentle melancholic smile.

"…grandfather?“ Legolas managed, voice still hoarse from the song and very much filled with disbelief.

For him the former king was the stuff of stories, a half-myth at best.

Oropher bowed his head lightly. "Grandson. I wish we had met under different circumstances.“

There was a brief moment of silence where the historically first conversation between two relatives should have taken off but it was broken by an explosion that sent shards of wood and metal in all directions. There was still a battle raging all around. It was simultaneously the best and worst time for bonding.

"What is happening?“ Legolas asked quietly, staring into the orange light spilling over their heads.

"Carnage,“ Oropher replied simply.

A grey shadow came barreling out of the reddish darkness. Sigrid swept Legolas out of Oropher‘s reach, leaving the former king confused and a bit startled, unsure whether he should follow them or not. The echo of Sigrid’s frantic incoherent speech convinced him he was no longer needed.

Sigrid looked worn, to say the least, and it took Legolas a while to see her under the mask of war she had pulled on. Shreds of her dove gray dress still hung from her body but they were dyed brownish red and there was blood and skin behind her fingernails and in her teeth, her eyes ere glistening and black and wild, just as the walkers had probably always imagined a shark’s gaze.

She looked terrifying and fierce and angry. She looked like a warrior from the dark ages.

But when she spoke, her voice was trembling and breaking.

"I thought you were actually dead,“ she said, hands wandering up an down Legolas‘ arms in a strange intimately protective touch, "I thought I’d gotten you killed. I’m so sorry, Legolas. I don’t know how to even… I’m so sorry, this whole thing just blew up in my face and I’ve started a war and…“

Legolas grabbed her by the shoulders, firmly enough to make it hurt a bit so she’d stop spiralling.

"No. Just… no. Okay? Drop it. You didn’t put me in a glass box. You didn’t come here to start a war, did you? You came here for something pure and nice, and they took it and ruined it and that is not your fault.“

A part of him did blame her, for following that boy, for naively believing in that pure and nice something. But another part of him pushed those thoughts back. Because he went after her. Out of worry, curiosity and childish jealousy. Nobody asked him to do that, she didn’t ask him to do that.

Legolas was looking at her and realized a striking change, a change that made him feel at ease and correct, like a puzzle piece finally sliding into the right spot.

"You’re my best friend, Sigrid. And I love you and don’t ever want to loose you. So, please, don’t pull anything like this crap again.“

Sigrid pulled him into an embrace, chuckling at the profanity that sounded so unbelonging in Legolas‘ mouth, and buried her face in his cold, sun deprived deep sea skin that once again smelled like algae and salt and home.

"Don’t worry. I’m done with them. They crossed all the lines when they took Tilda. “

Her embrace was soft but her voice was made of razors. There was a lot hiding behind the word "done“.

She reeked of walker blood and rage.

* * *

"I led them into a massacre,“ Thranduil whispered.

Bard was still processing the proximity in which their indidividual beings were currently finding themselves. They had slept side by side for what in hindsight seemed like ages, they had walked hand in hand and, though Bard wasn’t proud of that, Thranduil was on his mind as he had raced through the streets towards the port.

He felt so protective towards him after the time they spent together.

But he would never think that Thranduil would fling himself at him with this amount of affection. Or fear.

He would never think his own emotion would betray him like that and explode and splatter all over everything. His hand automatically went to Thranduil’s nape, digging into his hair, pulling him closer, as he had always done with anyone he loved when he needed to make sure they were really there, unscathed and breathing.

He had done that with Tilda when she had returned from her first surface venture.

He had done it with Bain an Sigrid when they had separated on a hunt once and couldn’t find each other for hours.

He had done it with Myra. Countless times.

It took Thranduil a long time to willingly untangle himself from Bard.

"They knew… they were ready for us. I should’ve forseen it,“ he said quietly, lowering his eyes to his webbed hands still holding onto Bard’s, as if he was just remembering what he had done.

He quickly let go, concealing the momentary vulnerability behind his old, now slightly dented mask.

"There are lines of hooks spread through the nearby waters, they have nets and traps laid where we can reach them… and they are hunting your people, Bard.“

The ruined side of Thranduil’s face autonomosly gained a dark expression more and more with every word. Bard withdrew at the sight of it.

"Have you seen my children?“

Thranduil shook his head ."We attacked alongside Bain but then I lost track of him. I don’t know what to tell you. We are doing everything we can but they know what they’re doing, they had to do this before at some point. Or they are just treat as like fish and we are falling for it.“

Bard knew it was primarily his people’s blood that was being spilled. He could smell it from the second he was able to smell anything at all back in the water.

"I need to find my kids,“ he said quietly and pushed past Thranduil in a single flip of a tail.

One thing at a time.

And children before anything else.

Thranduil’s immediate thought was to follow because another separation could have easily mean a final separation and having been reunited, he struggled to imagine his existence burdened by that. Watching Bard disappear in the direction of the chaos almost made him feel guilty, as if he had said something wrong.

"Legolas is safe,“ a disembodied voice said from below and Thranduil flinched. Oropher was smiling faintly, remaining ghostly and silent. "That shark girl is with him. They seemed happy.“

Thranduil could physically feel the weight that dropped from his shoulders. "Sigrid…“

"Sigrid,“ Oropher nodded absentmindedly.

His eyes were turned towards the surface where unclear silhouettes of both living and dead were floating under the fires.

"Go to your child, Thranduil,“ he said and his voice sounded like an echo in a trench, "and then go to him.“

His tone was somewhat definitive, almost bordering on defeated.

"They will not win this, _ada_ ,“ Thranduil said defensively, "they will not win this, "we will not let them.“

* * *

Bard barely felt Thranduil’s hand slid into his as he was dashing through the mayhem, trying to hold on to the faint track his offspring had left behind. He could smell Tilda the most and it was freaking him out.

She was everywhere.

"Legolas is with Sigrid,“ Thranduil said, matching his own pace with Bard’s, "they are safe. At least my father said so…“

"She made it then, thank gods. Wait, your what now?“ Bard half-turned to him, automatically pulling him closer so they wouldn’t crash into a struggling couple plummeting into the depths in a cloud of air bubbles and blood. "I thought he was…“

"We woke him up,“ Thranduil admitted, "we needed reinforcements. Especially with you out of the picture.“

"I needed to get Sigrid home,“ Bard said, unsure whether he should be defensive or apologetic, "everything fell apart so fast, I…“

"I’m sorry,“ Thranduil interrupted his attempt to explain himself, "Of course, children come first in the any father’s book. I honestly just felt like I was missing a limb, when you suddenly weren’t there.“

They were quickly approaching the one ship that solitarily remained intact despite everything. Tilda was close, Bard could feel it but he still stopped on the spot because at this point he really needed to just get it off his chest.

"Me too, Thranduil,“ he said simply, "I couldn’t sleep and I felt weak. I felt wrong. I really wanted you to stay there with me. There. I just needed to say that because it kept spinning around in my head and I really need to focus right now, so there, I said it and I’m… weirdly happy that you missed me.“

"It is very confusing, isn’t it,“ Thranduil said quietly.

"It is,“ Bard agreed.

They lingered for a while and then, simultaneously deciding to deal with their mutual confusion later, pushed on towards the black threatening belly of the O’Marley ship.

Their fingers remained entangled however. For safety reasons.


	17. Chapter 17

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello!   
> Here comes another chapter! Thank you for the feedback guys, it's really motivating <3 I hope you'll enjoy this one! Don't hesitate to tell me whatever you want in the comments!
> 
> Love y'all!

They found Tilda in cage, hanging by the side of the ship. She was slouching, as if asleep, but Bard’s heart almost stopped at the sight of her. Thranduil’s grip on his hand tightened.

"She’s breathing. Stay calm,“ he said quietly.

Each of them had earned several new bruises over the past few minutes. A lot of them were from mutual shoving and pushing to get out of the way of either someone charging at the enemy or dying. Bard had to admit that Thranduil’s fingers digging into his skin to the point of hurting him actually made him calmer. It kept him in the moment and reminded him that Thranduil was actually, really, absolutely there.

Tilda was no longer bleeding that heavily now but it was clear that she had bled a lot. There were deep gashes on her arms and tail and the stench of blood was overwhelming around her. She had ripped off parts of her tank top and attempted to bandage some of the worst wounds. Even when half-unconscious, her face was scrunched into a defiant expression and Bard could tell she hadn’t cried out once when they were hurting her. He hoped that she had bitten off some appendages.

The cage was metal but flimsy and the bars came apart easily in Bard’s hands, which immediately made him realize this was a trap, but he could care less. He was getting his baby out and then they can have him.

Thranduil coiled around him, vigilant and angrier with every little whimper that escaped Tilda’s lips. They were directly under the ship, in the proverbial eye of the storm. The sound of the battle was seeping through the water muffled, creating an illusion that they were somehow protected, but even the illusion didn’t bother to last that long.

Several men attached to ropes and clad in unfamiliar gear that clearly allowed them to breath under water. Thranduil flinched back at the sight of them and a split second later something close to a harpoon whooshed past his left ear. He turned back immediately, grabbing Bard by the waist and dove straight down.

Several more harpoons were fired in their direction and one tore through Bard’s flesh as he turned around to shield Tilda.

"Are you alright?“ Thranduil inquired immediately, changing their directions and speeding up in a desperate attempt to get out of the range of the divers.

"No, but keep going“ Bard grunted and pulled Tilda closer She was vaguely registering that her father was there, wrapping her arms around him, but still wasn’t completely herself. It was horrible to see her like that.

Thranduil eventually stopped, out of breath and with his arm cramping. He immediately turned to see Bard’s injury. His skin was torn just above the hip and it was bleeding profusely, but still would classify as a surface injury. Bard let him examine it while struggling to hold Tilda out of the was.

"I’m alright,“ he said uncovincingly, "she’s the priority. I need to get here somewhere safe.“

"Yes and you need to stay there with her,“ Thranduil replied, "this is bleeding a lot, Bard. It will slow you down and get you killed. I will find Bain and Sigrid and make sure they’re safe, but…“

"I’m not leaving you!“ Bard interrupted him.

"Bard…“

"I am. Not. Leaving you,“ Bard repeated almost angrily, "not again.“

Thranduil’s face betrayed him for a second, flashing a hint of relief. He wouldn’t argue. He knew he should, for the sake of Bard’s children but the selfish part of him wouldn’t.

The elderly, injured or disabled sharks remained guarding the tribe’s grounds. They showed genuine relief when Bard appeared, which quickly dissipated upon seeing Tilda. They took her from his arms and carried her inside, closely followed by two slender, pale gray doctors, while everyone else kept assuring him that she was in good hands.

Thranduil remained in the back, feeling out of place. He couldn’t overlook the glares some of the sharks shot at him. In the sudden abundance of confusing yet generally good feelings, he had almost forgotten that their courts still basically hated each other. Especially when it came to oldtimers. Bard let the doctor dress his wound, covered Tilda’s pale forehead with kisses and took off, quietly promising to come back, with the heads of anyone who had done this to her on a spike.

* * *

It didn’t take long for Sigrid and Bain to find each other. When she saw him amidst the chaos, her first thought was that he looked old. Much older than his age. But not in a way that would make him look less like a child. He still looked like a teenage kid. An old teenage kid. It scared her a little but that feeling was soon overwhelmed by the pure joy of seeing him again.

"We are not winning, are we,“ she said bitterly when they were done hugging.

"Not really, no,“ Bain admitted but didn’t seem too bothered by it too much.

It must have been the adrenaline.

Legolas was beginning to feel it too by now, but couldn’t tell if it wasn’t just pure anger.

"We need to sink that thing,“ Bain said, pointing in the direction of the O’Marley ship, "they had Tilda but I think she escaped, or someone broke her out, I saw the cage and it was all bent and broken… maybe it was dad.“

There was a lot of hope in those last four words.

Sigrid understood and nodded. She was very much in the mood for sinking some bloody ships.

They headed towards it in a tight formation, making sure nobody could get between them. Sigrid had no clue how to take down a ship that withstood an attack of an army, but she decided they would cross that bridge when they’s get to it. If anything though, the army surely didn’t consist of angry teenagers ad noone should ever underestimate angry teenagers.

A few feet from the dark shape of the underbelly of the ship, they stopped, one just like the other without any signal. They could all feel it, the eyes at the back of their necks.

Legolas swung around, ready to strike, and his fist stopped barely an inch from Oropher’s face.

"Not wise to sneak up on people right now, grandfather,“ Legolas sighed while the sharks behind him merely raised their eyebrows and Sigrid poorly concealed a chuckle.

Oropher tilted his head, confused. "I was not sneaking up on you, I just followed you.“

"Why?“ Bain inquired, slightly apprehensive of the sudden appearance of a giant deep sea merman.

"Your fathers would want me to, I assume,“ he replied and nodded towards the ship, "and you would need help.“

The first instinct of the children was to insist they didn’t, but this was not the place nor the time to care about teenage pride. So they nodded, each of them secretly happy that this enormous and mildly creepy creature was on their side now.

Sigrid headed towards the surface. Before they did anything, she needed to make sure someone wasn’t going to rain hellfire on them from above. It was certainly safer to assume they were about to. On her way up she had to dodge both the living and the dead, several harpoons and plenty of arrows that were clearly being blindly shot into the water from the beach, the pier and probably some surviving boats. The arrows slowed down once they entered the water but not enough to cause no harm. Several of them scratched Sigrid as she neared the surface, one took a whole strand of her hair with it, as she barely dodged it. She was focused though. Very focused.

The air felt weirdly cold given the time of day and season. Sigrid took in the barely breathable air, her eyes almost immediately started to sting from the smoke. There were bodies floating around. She tried not to look at them.

As expected, the O’Marley ship turned into a fortress. Sigrid counted at least twelve armed people on the side she could see, so she assumed there would be the same number on the other side. In addition to that, she saw nets and hooks and… and Sam.

He stumbled onto the pier, clearly still affected by the blow to the head. He had to have the biggest concussion and Sigrid wasn’t sure how it was possible that he was even standing. Not only standing but wielding a weapon. Sigrid watched in quiet awe as he launched himself at the nearest bowman. The guy was pissed off. He caught the enemy off guard and Sigrid saw a spray of something dark splatter on Sam’s face, while the body folded down and slid into the water. Sam had already moved on, clearly fueled by the success, but his target was ready this time. Sigrid knew what was going to happen before Sam took another step.

She immediately dove back in, reaching the others in four exhausting paces. They saw her coming and immediately headed forward, not even waiting for an explanation. They just moved, as fast as they could.

"What’s happening?“ Bain asked, almost out of breath, as they closed in on the ship. Sigrid opened her mouth to answer and the very same second Sam’s body plummeted into the water.

"Him!“ she yelled. "Catch him!“

The sudden panic in her voice prompted Oropher to move first. Being the biggest he was also the fastest. Sigrid watched him, holding her breath, and for a few seconds she could only focus on not wanting Sam to die.

He was virtually the only walker that didn’t entirely suck. He didn’t deserve this.

Bain was asking her something in an urgent tone but she couldn’t hear anything besides the sudden intense anxiety throbbing in her head. She realized up to this point she hadn’t admitted to herself that someone else she liked could get hurt. Someone else beside Tilda. Her brain had drawn a line at Tilda because that deed was done. Sam was crossing that line now and it scared her.

* * *

Bard feared that if they tried to gather the forces, they would fully realized how big their losses were. Some of the remaining deep sea soldiers started to trail behind Thranduil as they were approaching the centre.

The sharks remained scattered, trying to overcome the system that was picking them up one by one and mutilating them. It was a valiant effort with very little payback.

"We are going to sink that ship and it’s going to be over,“Thranduil said quietly.

He must have noticed Bard’s expression. Even the damaged side of his face, that had always seemed trapped in a perpetually harsh expression, was somehow softer.

Bard wondered what would happen between them if they really saw this to the end. He wondered what he would be willing to let happen.

He started slacking eventually, the wound, despite being cleaned and dressed, still hurt a lot and no matter his efforts, it did slow him down. Thranduil, without a single word, wrapped his arm around his waist, automatically, as if he had done it a million times before.

Just like Bard had done it a million times during their time on land.

The ship was within their reach and they both felt the mood change. The deep sea soldier flared up like agitated cats. They sped up noticeably. Thranduil, on the other hand, pulled back, stopping Bard too and nodding at his soldiers to go ahead.

Bard immediately started to prepare himself for defence. Thranduil was doubtlessly going to insist on him staying behind because of the injury.

He swallowed the protests that were already queueing on his tongue, and just asked: "What is it?“

"I don’t think I have to tell you that we might die during this,“ Thranduil said somberly, "and I don’t want to die bitter because I didn’t…“

He fell silent, unsure how to continue, and Bard’s heart started racing for no apparent reason.

Thranduil took a deep breath. "I’m just going to do it. I’m going to do it before I overthink it. Again.“

"What do you mean agai-"

Bard didn’t get to finish, because Thranduil grabbed his face and kissed him. It was sort of clumsy and neither of them knew who was to blame because they hadn‘t kissed anyone in ages. Safe for their children’s foreheads.

Bard felt relief among other things and thought about how much he missed feeling these other things.

Thranduil felt mostly pain. The good kind of pain but pain neverthless. Suddenly he almost regretted doing this because it was going to make dying so much harder.


End file.
